Experimentation
by White Silver and Mercury
Summary: Life is an experiment. There is no erasing. You learn as you go. Eleven year old Edward Elric, his younger brother, and Winry Rockbell stumble into experimentation and mistakes. Chastely..or provocative? [rotating POVs, simply an experiment x3]
1. Explanation Number One

**Disclaimers: Don't own FMA.**

**A/N: Winry's POV for this chapter. (Any typos, please excuse.)**

**Warning: This is from MY mind, so…don't expect anything very tame.**

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_Explanation Number One_

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If no one noticed us, then I think they must have been high.

All of the girls at school told me that they think he's just trying to get into my pants. Or, rather, up my skirt. The other day, Sen talked to me during break about boys. I was really ticked off. She believes that she knows everything, just because she's the only girl in our grade who's ever had a boyfriend besides me. And honestly, I think she's just a petty little prostitute. I admit, though, that it makes me really proud that she's constantly competing with me on how many boys turn to look. She's always bringing up her hems and lowering her collars and fluffing her hair; she's so nasty. I won't lower to her level, though.

I told her during break when she tried to be superior, that I really did not care. I looked her right in her ugly green eyes and said levelly, "I'm eleven and he's eleven. Summer break has not made us any different, except for the fact that we've realized we're more than just best friends. If you're really that jealous, Sen, go find yourself an eighth grade blockhead and then we'll talk."

Then I walked away and found him and his brother waiting for me on the sidewalk outside.

He's really an idiot, but I think I love him. School is back in session and the very first day he chose a desk next to me, and, luckily, even while he's such a dork that he does fifty percent of messing around in school and fifty percent of doing work diligently and efficiently, the teacher hasn't switched seats yet. I love his smile so much, and I get it so much more now. He wants to hold my hand all the time, or hug me around the waist from the side or from behind. Sometimes he'll be very shy, and sometimes really arrogant and show-offy, but when we're alone, he acts so natural that I'm sure that we're not too young to be together.

Two weeks before school started, in early August, he and Alphonse were leaving my house after dinner. It was dark, but the fireflies were creating stars below the clouds. Alphonse was jumping down the stairs and Ed turned and waved at me, and said rapidly, "Okay, I love you, bye!"

I don't think he realized what he'd said, or maybe he did and didn't want to show it, but he immediately froze and so did I. The only light was the fireflies and the lamp from the living room shining out from behind me. I stood in the front door threshold and stared at him, and he stared back at me, looking ashamed and afraid and utterly embarrassed.

"Yeah, I love you too, good night," I squeaked. I could feel my face turning blood red as I slammed the door. When I peeked out the window, I could see him jumping around and running and playing with Al a while down the road. I smiled and shut the curtains.

For two weeks, we'd be together in secret. He would hold me and I would hold him. We started to kiss on the third day. After a week of hard thought, I whispered into his ear, "I always knew there was something more, Ed. I just thought it was a brother-sister thing, but I guess not, right?"

He laughed and kissed me. The feel of his lips anywhere on me, the warmth and security of his breath and his arms and his chest, the sound of his laughter and the sight of his cat-eyed grin; it all makes me feel so happy, so comforted. It's like our love is just something that was always there, but never realized nor spoken. It's just known. It's just there.

My grandmother thinks that we're cute, but she never says anything about us being too little for anything. I'm kind of afraid of that, but I'm also thankful, I guess. After all, my grandma is the only one I have left and I really listen to her. I really do. She's so much more than the old bat Edward accuses her of being with his taunts.

The other night, we were upstairs sitting on my bed. Al was playing with Den in the hallway, and my bedroom door was open. Edward had his arms around me, and his nose in my neck. I was resting my head on his, savoring the feel of his breath on my skin, making my stomach twist up and my skin prickle with shivers. He turned his head and whispered into my ear, "I think I know why we dove into this."

"Why?" I whispered back, still smiling at Al as he laughed at Den's antics.

"Because," he murmured, his mouth moving slowly on the curvatures of my ear. I bit my lip as my heart began to race. "We must be so advanced, mentally. We're ready for it. It was meant to be."

I turned and looked at him, a little confused at the complexity of his simple statement. He peered back at me sheepishly, his lips parted and his brows furrowed. Then I quickly pressed my lips to his, and he looked startled again, coy. I grinned and nuzzled my nose on his and he slouched against me, always embarrassed when we did things in front of his brother. Oh sure, he'll completely make out with me anywhere else, even in school, even in town, but no, not in front of little Alphonse.

"You're right," I murmured, and then rested my head on his again, looking back to Al. He was watching us, shyly and chastely. I started to giggle, and then I broke into squirming laughter. Ed hid his face in the back of my neck, grumbling into my skin with hot breath. I just laughed hard and Alphonse broke into a broad, cherubic smile at the sight of us.

I really love that idiot.

Something that kind of scares me is what exactly is going on with me other than my overflowing love. I know what puberty is; I'm not completely stupid. My breasts have grown already and I'm a little embarrassed because only Sen has boobs bigger than me, but she is just a whore. I started my period and now I'm freaking _hairy_, a week before the Summer Evening "I love you"s, and I really hate it already. What if Ed found out? _Do you know how embarrassing that'd be_!

I get really emotional, a lot more. I cry a lot. I giggle and shriek and its hard to get me mad, but so easy to make me _cry_. I cried in front of him one day. I said, "Why do you care more about your stupid alchemy than me?" It made him really mad and I broke down. It took him a few minutes before he pulled me to him and tried to make me stop. I felt so horrible. I hate crying, because I know that it hurts him.

I can see it in his eyes.

He tells me that he loves it, even if it is annoying or if it pains him. He told me, "It shows you care. You're just that willing to help people. You're just that loving. I love that. I love you." And then he kissed me and I couldn't cry anymore.

He's gotten really touchy lately. His eyes always fall places, and his hands go lower and lower than they used to. He just wants to kiss me, touch me in anyway, whether it's the brush of his fingers or his lips on my neck. It makes me feel so weird. My body gets hot and my chest tightens and I get excited; and I feel…_odd_. Between my legs.

I might sound slutty, but I'm not. I really love him, and I _love_ what he does to me. When he excites me like that, I want him to keep doing it but he always stops and then I lay in bed after he and Alphonse have gone home, all night staring at my walls and ceiling with wide eyes, wondering if he's as nervous as I am about what's happening between us.

The thing is, I want to make him feel like that too. And I don't know what to do, because he's so quiet when it comes to what he wants and feels and needs, that he wouldn't tell me to be as touchy as him. Should I? Shouldn't I? I don't know. It makes me mad. It makes me want to fucking _cry_.

For some reason I feel like no one can catch up with us, but I feel like we – me and Ed – are going too slow for each other.

"Equivalent exchange," he always tells me, randomly, throughout the day.

Equivalent exchange?


	2. Explanation Number Two

**Disclaimers: I do not own FMA.**

**A/N: Edward's POV for this chapter. (Any typos, please excuse.)**

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_Explanation Number Two_

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I'm not stupid. I have books. I know what puberty is.

It's really annoying though. What's kind of cool is that I should get taller, but so far nothing has happened but my voice squeaks and my cock's getting longer. I think my balls have gotten just a little bit bigger, but whatever.

It's sort of funny, too. I know that I act like it really pisses me off when people laugh because I try to scream, or I try to mumble, or I try to _talk_, and my voice rasps and I squeal and I have a hoarse, high pitch at the end of every vowel, but it really is amusing, I know. That started to happen around early June, and…it's about mid-August now, and school has started.

When my voice started to change, I was so freaked out. I would stay up ten times later than Alphonse, digging through all the books I could find, trying to find some medical texts that would explain what I already knew was happening. When I couldn't find enough on it, I cornered my brother in the kitchen one afternoon and told him, "Al. Listen to me, I _know_ what I am talking about, and I think that you're going through puberty. So why don't you go to the library and get some books? We can talk if you need to."

I tried so hard not to laugh my ass off at the way he looked at me. He looked so horrified, so startled, like he really trusted me. Which, I guess it is pretty believable, even if it was something rare for me to say. But then again, everything I say or do is unexpected. Right?

He ran to the library and checked out five books. Once he'd finished studying them and fell asleep, I read them. And I knew what was going on.

Alphonse and I stay up until at least one in the morning, every night, for the past five, six months. We bring our blankets and pillows and a long stock of candles and lamps into the den to research until we fall asleep. During the day while we clean the house (for Mom's sake; it was Al's idea), while we do chores, while we run around and play games with Winry and her dog – we always study, too. We recite things to each other as perfectly as we can; we use ourselves as a type of living notebook. Winry will always yell at us, "What are you guys _babbling_ about?" and then get completely pissed when we just laugh at her.

Sure, I feel bad that we're hiding this from Winry. But I don't want to drag her into this. If something happened to her, I would feel…so guilty. And when I feel guilty, it never ceases to eat at me. That's just who I am.

During the summer days, arguing, wrestling, running, laughing, splashing, talking, playing – I'd been sneaking as many glances, as many meticulous glances, as I could at Winry. The books I'd read talked about pubescent girls as well: about their body changing not only on the inside but the outside. I'll admit that I had already noticed that she was getting slimmer, getting taller, getting…_rounder_. It made me nervous to be around her. All of a sudden, while we played our childish games and had our childish fights, I couldn't look at her without thinking, "Beautiful. Amazing. Wonderful."

I tried to study more, to wrap myself in my research like a security blanket. But my thoughts consumed me even in my dreams. It was as if it wasn't my imagination talking in my sleep, but my mind, for real. I was thinking even as I slept, and I remembered it all.

I kept trying to tell myself that it was just that ugly word, the word that haunted every corner of my book pages – _puberty_. In late July it hit me; I was too stubborn to accept anything. I was too fatheaded to realize that I really liked Winry, as more than just a sister.

And of course, I, Edward Elric, am so intractable that I pushed that idea away and completely forgot about it.

Things changed, though. When I was around Winry, I felt so inferior. I was so nervous. I tried to stay away from her but when I did, the world was boring. I couldn't focus on my studies. I couldn't do chores knowing that I had sent Alphonse, my little ten-year-old brother, out there to play with the girl that _I _wanted to be playing with.

I don't mean my stomach just twisted up and I was a little anxious. I mean I was _sweating_, I felt like jelly, my heart was racing in my chest, and I just wanted to put my arms around her. I found myself thinking about kissing her more and more. Just on the cheek, but maybe more.

Once I even got a hard on and I was really pissed off at myself. It came from _nowhere_.

Then this one night came, this one night about two, two and a half weeks before school started. Alphonse and I had eaten dinner at Winry's house and then stayed for about an hour afterwards for pie and games. We laughed in the living room, ran around playing a very determined game of tag, and then set out to hurry back down the hill in the faded light and glowing fireflies.

I didn't realize what I was saying. Winry and I were laughing about something (I can't remember what) and out of nowhere, I waved, and blurted, "Okay, I love you, bye."

She had frozen right there, the smile twitching off her face and her cheeks turning red. I remember just staring at her, my heart leaping into my throat, utterly terrified and so embarrassed. I dropped my hand and looked at her a little longer, my eyes wide and my throat dry. She looked really pretty that night, I remember that much. She was wearing a blue tank top and a denim skirt, and in the dim light from the living room behind her I could see one of her bra straps slipping out from beneath her tank. Her hands were dangling near her stomach, falling slowly from her own returned wave. Her smile was disappearing but her lips were parted and her blonde hair fell around her shoulders, free from her ponytail or any other restriction. A bit of her bangs fell across one eye, and then she smiled really bright and said so softly I could barely hear her, "Yeah, I love you too, good night."

Then she closed the door quickly and Al called to me from the front yard, "Brother, what's wrong? Let's go back now! Teratomas, brother, c'mon."

"That's crap!" I remember spinning around and laughing at my brother's innocent teasing. "We're not working towards a teratomas, it's a real illegal act. Aren't _we_ bad ass!"

We both laughed and I hopped the last steps of the Rockbell porch, taking off towards our house in a race with Alphonse. He was laughing for real tonight, and for some reason I felt like I had a horrible weight lifted off my chest. One of many, that is.

It all sort of fell into place. We hid it for a little bit, sneaking kisses and holding hands when no one looked. But then it all changed, and drastically. I wanted more, desperately. She was chaste but she told me that she wanted to feel my hands. One night we made out, and since that night we'd be inseparable.

School started and I chose a desk near hers. We laugh and whisper and talk all day. Breaks only mean more holding each other, more talking, more teasing, more of her playful squeals and smacks and more of me running away howling as she chases me.

The guys congratulate me, like the ignorant, hormonal idiots they are. I always feel like they're too stupid. I never hang around them much. I never did anyway. It's always been me, Winry, and Alphonse.

Gregh told me once, "Man, you're so lucky. She's really hot." I looked at him sharply and gave him a slight shove with my shoulder, frowning. "Shut up," I said. "I _am_ lucky and I'm sorry that you're just an idiot obsessed with titties. Go find Sen."

Winry hates Sen.

Sen hates Winry.

Its one of those girl rivalries that we never really understand. People always stare at us, or point and whisper, during break when I kiss her, or when she hides her face in my neck. When we hold hands in a teacher's view (I do this to make her mad. I'm good at that.) they always tell us to back off or they'll send us to the office.

They never do, no matter how many times it happens.

Lately I've been lacking in my studies. Winry never leaves my mind. She has to have noticed how touchy I've gotten. But I can't help it. I'm not going to just tell her this, but _I want to touch her_. Somewhere _under_ her dresses and shorts and skirts and pants and shirts. I want to make her go crazy. I read in the _puberty_ book that girls really like to be touched, and I guess that's a good thing because I really, _really_ want to touch Winry Rockbell.

If she's opposing it, she hasn't showed any signs.

Maybe one day soon I'll bring it up.

I'm trying hard to get my mind off of it but the more I study the more I wonder what Mom would think and the more I wonder what I'm supposed to do now.

"Equivalent exchange," I tell her all the time.

Equivalent exchange.


	3. Explanation Number Three

**Disclaimers: Don't own FMA.**

**A/N: Alphonse's POV. Aww, poor insightful Alphonse! ;; (Any typos, please excuse.)**

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_Explanation Number Three_

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I can't help but smile every day during break, at school, when I look up and see all the girls giggling and talking to Winry about Edward or all the boys looking at my brother like he's a god, or the two of them clinging to each other and laughing heartily and joking with their few real friends. Every now and then I'll flick a note at him from a few feet away and smile bigger when he looks at me, startled, and then grinning. Every time my little notes read some type of our secret codes for our research. My stupid teasing of "teratomas" or "mini Paracelsus" or "you criminal" or my sincere little pencil recitations of the chemical make-up of a human body.

I have a really good friend named Kirk. During lunch break we sit near the swings where the littler kids run around and squeal and play. We watch my brother and Winry, and sometimes he'll look at me and say, "Your brother is really a good guy."

"I know," I say back. "He is, isn't he? And Winry is a good girl."

"Do you have to be the parent to them sometimes?"

I just laugh at him, and he laughs too. "Yes," I say. And we giggle and grin. "Sometimes I have to pry him away so we can do…homework."

No one can know about our research. Winry feels left out, but I know that it would be irresponsible and horrible for us to drag her into these deep waters with us.

I noticed everything change about mid-June. I could tell what they felt, but I could also tell they were both confused. The way that they would look at each other, the way that they would play games sometimes, the way that they'd talk; I never felt left out. I never did. That is the truth. I am very happy for them; I'm not jealous that they've found something deeper than a sibling relationship, because I know that I'll find someone too.

I can tell that my brother is ultimately torn between caring for me and making sure I'm not lonely, that and the ever-increasing and always mind-blowing and depressing and dismal studies, late at night, those and spending time with Winry. There's that looming cloud, always there, waiting for the moment when we attempt the illicit. I know he wants to cherish the time with her, because I know that he knows that things will never, _never_ be the same after we do this.

It scares me, how intelligent my brother is. He tells me that I am so caring, so smart, so quiet – the stereotypical mouse that everyone loves. I told him once that I worry so deeply about how talented and profound he is.

"Be careful, Brother," I whispered to him as we studied one night. "Please." He looked up at me and his eyes were so big and endless, it sent shivers down my spine.

"The world is experimental, Al," he murmured back, the constant squeak residing in the echo-less corners of his voice. "Everything is dangerous and everything is wonderful. There is no careful. And we're in this together, you know. You watch your step as well."

I gawked at him and he gawked back. There was a weird tense sensation lingering in the candlelight that danced the shadows like marionettes on our faces. I stared into his bottomless amber eyes, getting more and more fearful as the seconds slipped by. He looked back at me, serious and poignant, the closest thing to the all-knowing god that I think (thought) I'd ever reach.

I respect my brother. I worry for my brother. I love my brother. He's all that I have, and I am content with that too. I trust my brother. I am so lucky to have such a deep, intense connection to him, a connection that crackles deeper in his blood than his love for Winry.

Is that selfish, to indulge in that bond so energetically?

I try to seem indifferent towards them. I try to hide my blushing at the fact that they are so intimate already. I duck my face into Den's fur, I turn my head away, I leave the room to talk to Granny, and I smile.

When Edward falls asleep without finishing all his schoolwork, as soon as he comes back, _later_, after staying up the hill longer than I have, I do it gladly. Sometimes I get irritated at his nonchalance or his recklessness, or his arrogance and mischief and constant mood swings. I swear he's as horrible as Winry, when it's her Time of Month, except he's temperamental _all the time_ and she just cries often.

(My brother made me read books once, about this change called Puberty. I remember things very well.)

One night, Granny made a really big dinner. Bigger than her normal ones. She made quail, with lots of sauces and vegetables, and mashed potatoes and biscuits and sweet corn. Winry ate her usual small dish of everything, and I ate my full plate of everything, and Brother ate his proverbial three and a half dishes with mountains and mountains of _everything_.

She even had apple-pecan pie afterwards, which my brother then, to all of our amusement, ate almost half of. I'm not exaggerating.

Afterwards we all tried not to laugh at him because he was sitting at the chair with his empty dishes in front of him, his head tilted back, his eyes half open and his hands resting on the tabletop limply. If he caught us snickering, he would snap at us with a voice that sounded drunk. Winry was giggling and snorting behind her hand as she cleared the table. After Edward had enough of our obvious entertainment, he grumbled, "You guys are horrible." and tottered out of the kitchen into the living room.

The house was completely silent except for whispers between me and Winry, the clinking of dirty dishes, and Granny's gulping and exhaling and cackling at us. Now and again she would grunt through her beer glass, "You three, I swear." or "Who needs the newspaper when you've got the Elrics and the Rockbells!"

Finally Winry went into the living room to check on him. When she returned she was stifling red-faced grinning. "He's asleep, fast asleep," she squealed, turning the sink faucet on. "He's such a dork. He's so cute though."

She caught herself as Granny and I glanced at her simultaneously, both of us with a slight quirk of our lips. She blushed and started to wash the dishes with strange vehemence. Granny eventually waddled out of the room with her pipe to sit outside and finish up her night in the summer glow. Winry slowly turned the sink off, and, without looking at me, whispered, "I love him so much Al."

I smiled from the dining table and said, "I know, Winry."

"He's such an idiot."  
"I know, Winry."

"But I love him."  
"I know, Winry."

"…Have you ever watched him sleep, Alphonse?"

"Sometimes I look at him while he falls asleep on his book. I want to move it but I don't want to disturb him."

"He looks so at peace. When he's awake, he's always slightly troubled."

I remember that I got quiet, because I knew why. Our studies were getting more and more confusing, incomprehensible.

"He does, doesn't he?" I said after a minute.

Winry is just as unexpected as my brother, though Edward is so impulsive it's frightening. She turned that night and she hugged me as tight as she could.

"I worry about him, too," she told me. "I love him so much. I don't know if you can understand that."

"It's okay," I said, smiling more. "You know, I worry too. I think that's his goal in life, to make people worry their butts off."

She giggled. "Al, you're so cute. You're so devoted to making everyone happy."

I grinned at her and she hugged me tighter.

"I'll help with the dishes," I said, and so I did. And later that night I did all of Edward's homework. All he did was kiss Winry good night and stumble home to fall asleep on the floor in his room, curled up with the clothes strewn near the foot of his bed.

Everything nowadays echoes equivalency. Maybe I'm just studying too much, but I can't stop. I know my brother thinks that he's lacking, and he hates it. So I'm memorizing and reciting and soaking up all the information that he does, plus the texts that he's assigned to me. I'm making sure that I know everything, so that in case he breaks down, I'll be his back up.

"Equivalent exchange," Edward mutters around Winry, and when he's alone in the study with me he looks at me and says the same thing, but with different meaning. Around Winry it sounds so impish, provocative; and when he looks me right in my eyes and says it to me, it makes me apprehensive and makes my concern for him explode up into my mind again. _Equivalent exchange_, a warning or an assurance?

Equivalent exchange?


	4. The Fight

**Disclaimers: I don't own FMA.**

**A/N: Edward's POV. (Any typos, please excuse.)**

**Also – the Sixth A, Seventh B, refer to the classes. "A" means the advanced sessions of the grade, and "B" means the normal curriculum. Is that clear enough? ee**

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_The Fight_

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I've always liked action. Ever since my brother could walk, we would wrestle and scrap and when I'd accidentally hurt him and he'd start to cry, and Mom would scold me for being too rough, I'd get mad and run out near the river to fight air. Every now and then, Alphonse and I, when we get too stiff from long hours of research, will take off through the dark house, running into walls and tables and chairs and corners, stumbling down the stairs howling and laughing, until we were outside in the cool night time – Alphonse will lunge at me, with an enticed smile spread on his face, and I'll block his hook and send my foot flying for his side. We'll tumble and dance, a gasped laugh and triumphant or disappointed shouts rising up into the starry sky, bare feet pounding the damp grass of our front yard.

When our muscles are no longer sore and we're panting for breath, we'll collapse in the lawn with our shoulders touching, staring up at the sky and laughing and telling each other what we thought of the sweaty rumble. Al never critiques me; I'm the one with no shame. "You could go faster," I'll say, or, "That uppercut was kind of weak. Are you afraid you'll hurt me?" He'll snort and shake his head and then smack me just for good measure, to even it out.

At school I'm known for my notorious temper. In fact, I think all of Risembool knows me for my temper. Winry says it scares her, and Al says I need to control it better. I don't care either way; I like my title and I like my temper.

My teachers are all aware that I could snap at someone's jests and an outburst could occur at any moment. When it does happen, they pull me aside and I usually spend the rest of the day in the office and walking home with Winry and Alphonse afterwards gets me nothing but reprimands.

Lately my anger has been extremely close to the surface. Maybe I've been pushing it with my studies; maybe I'm thoroughly exhausted, and I don't even feel it anymore but its there.

Whatever it is, I really don't care. I like fighting anyway.

Winry's grip tightened on my hand and she leaned on me, making me stumble a few steps. I frowned roughly, and nudged her with my hip.

"Hey, hey, _hey_!" I squeaked. "You're gonna knock me over."

From the other side of Winry Alphonse snickered.

I glanced at him sharply and twisted into a slight pout. I tightened my own grip on her hand and stroked her knuckles with my thumb. Al leaned forward a bit, peering over at me innocently. "Brother, two minutes, and you have to behave." That was his farewell as he ran off towards his classroom door. I glanced at the blonde girl next to me and snorted.

"Like I give a rat's ass about behaving," I mumbled. She frowned and jabbed me in the side with her fingertip.

"Hey. Your brother is just concerned."

"Well, I don't see a reason for it."

Winry jerked off of me and stared, her mouth open but her eyes dancing.

"Are you kidding me?" she shrieked, and then started to laugh loudly as she skipped a few feet in the direction of the Sixth A classroom. I darted after her, scowling petulantly.

"You guys are both against me! What is your _problem_?" Winry spun around, stopping short and making me almost fall as I tried to slow down before stepping on her feet. Her black slip-on shoes, bare feet latent beneath, were only an inch from my dusty, tattered boots and I grabbed her hands, swinging them up near her shoulders as she laced her fingers with mine. I leaned on her and she tilted back a little as I pressed my lips against hers for just a momentary kiss, her palms dusting my shoulders.

She flicked her eyes up to meet mine through her lashes and I broke into a grin. Her lips curled upwards into a sly smile and she giggled, opening her mouth to say something.

"Disgusting little sow!"

I felt my entire body snap rigid, my eyes narrowing and my grin dissipating rapidly into a tight teeth-gnash. My head spun around to my right where the voice came from, my stomach crawling upwards in that Pre-Temper way that it did, my heart starting to pound and my common sense starting to retreat. I heard and felt Winry take in a startled breath as she turned to look in the same direction. At least six feet away stood a girl with a black ponytail, a plaid bow resting just above her left ear. She was clinging to a Seventh B student, one with a brown cap on over his rusty-blonde wisps of hair. His lips were curled in a slight sneer. I knew who they both were.

Sen and her latest catch, Christoph.

I didn't even have to look at Winry as her grip stiffened, my hands hurting now, to know that she had a stern, livid expression on her perfect face. I could hear her screaming at me silently, _Don't, Ed, don't, just stop it, just leave this to me, this is my problem_.

But then that stupid bastard looked right at me and said, levelly, "Have you dirtied her innocence yet, small stuff?"

I jerked away from Winry, gritting my teeth, my lip curling up as I hissed, "You better take that back, you no-good piece of shit!" He had the _nerve_ to step towards me, the smirk still pulling on his brutish lips.

"I'm being threatened by a level six girl chaser. A little young for that, buddy?"

And _that_ was when I cracked.

"_Bastard_!" I howled, leaping towards him and swinging my arm back, landing my knuckles directly to the side of his mouth. His face jerked to the side and he stumbled a few steps back. I didn't even give him time to check to see if all his jaw was still in tact; I charged again, vaguely hearing Sen's putrid screeching and Winry's pissed-off shrieking through the mist of ire. All I saw was that worthless asshole and his dull eyes, fired up by the sudden blow.

His fingers curled on the collar of my shirt and I kept my gaze locked on his, already pulling my arm back for another hook. From my peripheral vision I saw his own fist recoiling for its spring, and I immediately sent my knee up into the soft area between his groin and his ribs, just as his hand rocketed into my mouth.

We both reeled backwards, and he fell to his ass as I skidded on mine. I leaped to my feet, enough brawls with my brother having taught me to never stay down and recover. A few seconds after I had reached my feet and was barreling towards him again, he started to climb back up. I howled as I sent my foot into his ribcage, and he rolled away, coughing, leaping to his own feet and heading my direction again.

I chanced a wild glance to the side and saw Sen cowering with some of her stupid supercilious friends just a few feet away, saw Winry screaming, but not hearing what she said. I wanted to tell her to go after Sen, go after the fucking whore, but Christoph's foot impacted my stomach and sent me flying backwards with a yelp. My shoulders hit the ground first and I slid, my feet flying over my head as I tumbled in reverse.

Aching and drawing in hissing breaths as I stifled groans, I staggered back to my feet and snagged him by his collar, imitating exactly what he'd done to me earlier. "Listen!" I snarled into his face, boxing his ear to block his attempt at a hook. His forearm smacked mine and he howled in protest.

"I don't care about your fun little times," I barked, sending my knee back into his solar plexus. My heart was racing in excitement. I was dizzy. All I heard was my fist impacting his face and his moaning and my screams. "I could give less than a shit about your pompous Seventh B, because it's not my fault you're bored out of your mind after being there the past two years. I _bet_ it gets tiresome, doesn't it? _Doesn't_ it, you bastard?"

An uppercut hit me in the jaw and my head snapped backwards. I stumbled back, holding my face and hunching forward. I had clawed at his collar so hungrily that I'd ripped it as he sent me away with his knuckles. My hand was balled up on the blue cotton and I looked at it, trembling with suppressed ranting as I uncurled my aching digits and let it fall to the ground near my feet.

I looked up just in time to see him lumber to me, seething, blood pouring out of his nose and trickling from between his clenched teeth. Christoph gave me a rough shove and I flew backwards, skidding on the ground and feeling something – a stone, a stick, something – shred at my temple. I came up on my elbow, preparing myself for a block or an opening, and stared up at him with what I could _feel_ looked like homicidal intent.

"Shut up!" he cried hoarsely, his voice trembling as if he were about to let tears flow. Blood from his mouth sprung out and a few droplets landed on me. I smeared them off, lip curling as I spat a mouthful of my own into the dirt. Everything ached, but dully. I knew it would start to pulse and make me miserable in just a bit but my temper always numbed everything.

"Shut up," he said again, standing there with quivering, clenched hands, and then he turned and stalked off.

"Sorry," I called after him malignantly, a proud, toothy grin plastered on my dirty face. From the corner of my eye I saw a teacher darting after him, and the rest of the world started to return. I heard the fuss of (probably) half the school gathered about us, noticed Winry hurrying towards me with another adult. For a fleeting second I wondered where Alphonse was, and then noticed he was right beside Winry. I finished my "apology" with a loud laugh.  
"Sorry," I repeated volubly as the teacher hurried to intercept Christoph's fractious stomping. "I guess some people just aren't lucky. That's okay, I'm sure one day you'll find someone. Too bad she won't want you, after Sen or some other one of you little girlies gives you a disease!" Sen hurried to Christoph's side but he shrugged her away. She sent me a look that was just as malicious as mine, and then stormed off with her little minions. Winry screeched something towards them, and they squealed and ran off like a flock of birds scattering after a loud noise. I snorted, added, "I hope you'll graduate this year, asshole!"

To that I got a smack on the side of the face, thankfully the one where the idiot hadn't socked me. My eyes widened. Abruptly I was back in reality, the fog of rage completely evaporated. The principal had his arms hooked under mine; he had slapped me to get me to shut up. I glanced around, realizing that all of sixth and seventh had accumulated, and at least five teachers; three teachers were handling the other half of the fight, surrounded by most of Seventh B and a few mingling retards from Sixth A and B, the ones who looked up to the dim-witted jock like he was their savior.

"I can't believe this." I turned my head. My neck was sore. Staring up at my teacher, who had come out of freaking nowhere, with wide, innocent eyes, I muttered with a slur (thanks to the bloody lip and aching jaw and the blood still running out of the corner of my mouth), "What?"

"I can't _believe_ you, Edward." She sighed, covering her face, shaking her head. Alphonse was trying to wipe the blood off my cheek and chin.

"Ow!" I hissed, and then mumbled an apology as he withdrew with a perplexed, furrowed brow. Winry kicked my shin as the principal started to lead me off. Yet another teacher appeared and was trying to calm the crowd down. "Oh, great, I get attacked afterwards, too," I groaned, spitting at the dirt again. I left a trail of tiny blotches of maroon. Winry was staring at me, intensely, with a mix of worry and ferocity in her eyes. Her mouth was in a tight frown.

The door to the office slammed behind me and I blinked a few times, pain starting to make my muscles stiff but trembling, my mouth starting to clot up. I coughed and some beadlets of blood sprayed everywhere, to which I gave my principal an apologetic little smile.

"How are you today, Wardell?" I said as sweetly as I could, as he sat me down on the bench in the lobby of his office. He looked at me sharply and jutted his jaw out as he put his hands into his pockets. Winry waved at him idly, looking slightly apprehensive, and then sat down beside me; I could feel her inspecting my face with her eyes as she clutched my arm, obviously more concerned about my injuries than the fact that Sen had called her a female fucking pig.

"I'm fine, Elric. Hello, Al. How are you?" Mr. Wardell smiled at my little brother warmly as a teacher left him at the bench. She looked to him and then me then shook her head and pushed back outside.

Alphonse sat beside me and sighed heavily. "I told him to behave." He smiled brightly and, if I wasn't already swelling, I would have gone slack-jaw and exclaimed, _Since when have you two gotten so close?_ Maybe they both read my thoughts because they both chuckled. Winry even smiled and giggled as she brushed some hair off my forehead to examine where some sharp little fucker on the ground had caught me.

Sometimes I think the world is really against me or something.


	5. Thoughts Exceeding Physical Age

**Disclaimers: Don't own FMA.**

**A/N: Winry's POV. (Any typos, please excuse.)**

-

_Thoughts Exceeding Physical Age_

-

The school nurse put the last band-aid on Edward's left temple and let his hair fall into place. He was giving everyone the same dirty scowl, but maybe that was just the way his jaw was puffing up. He rested his elbow on his thigh and was keeping the frosty compress up against his orifice, staring at the woman in front of him darkly. She had previously had him lift up his shirt, only to reveal massive bruises already turning the deep shade of yellow.

He looked like a squashed banana and it made me flinch. I sighed shrilly and frowned angrily; crossing my arms and leaning back against the chair I was sitting in. The three of us had been moved into the nurse's office, the inferior to the superior level seven student who had the gift of age and was then credited with the principal's office for his injuries to be tended to.

Alphonse leaned in the corner of the office, near the door. The room was overwhelmingly white and smelled too clean for my liking. My frown deepened sharply. Edward glanced to me and his brows rose and then fell again. His left cheek was puffed out with cotton balls stuffed in to help the clotting blood where his teeth had apparently gouged out the inner flesh of his face.

I hunched down, holding my knees together to keep my pose ladylike. I wasn't about to make a bad impression of my own, though this scene was nothing new. The first class was almost over and soon it would be time for us to start history.

My heart was still pounding roughly in my chest. I pressed my lips into a tight line, eyes narrowing at the floorboards of the luminescent white room. I was still shaking slightly from my own temper flare. If I hadn't been paying attention to the boys, trying to make sure they didn't kill each other, screaming for someone to get a teacher so that the bastard who'd started this whole thing would be dragged off of Ed, I would have been clawing Sen's disgusting eyes out and yanking fistfuls of her stringy hair from her scalp.

She made me _so mad_ sometimes. I couldn't _believe_ what she'd started this morning. It was so utterly unfathomable of how nasty she could be; and, beyond all of this, I didn't even know she'd switched boys! How could she go from Seth to Christoph so indifferently?

Some girls I think should just die.

I snuck a glance towards Edward. He was gaping at his feet as intently as I was the floor. He looked like he was seriously contemplating something. The nurse brushed past Alphonse and out of the office, shutting the door loudly. I wanted to pinch the stupid bastard but I didn't.

In fact, when I looked at him, even with all the dirt and the blood and the band-aids, my stomach twisted and I felt my pulse quicken. I looked to Alphonse quickly. He was staring at his feet also. What _was_ it with them? My eyes found Ed again and I hid my face with my hair, sitting up straighter and then hunching so that my arms rested on my thighs. I toyed with the hem of my skirt, fingering it where it was slightly tattered.

I drew in a breath and then sighed, trying to calm myself. Out of nowhere I was starting to get that feeling again, that feeling where I wanted to be left alone with him in my room so I could just stare at him and feel him pressed against me, feel his hands moving up and down my back and then inching to my hips as he tried to say something without speaking, feel his gaze boring into mine, making me shudder.

I shook my head rapidly. I told myself to stop it. I looked between the two brothers and then sighed so loudly and heavily and _angrily_ that it turned into a shrill squeal. Both Elrics looked at me, startled and looking irritated, as if I had just done the rudest thing on earth – interrupting their thoughts.

"What?" I snapped, sliding down and kicking my feet on the floor. "God, you guys, don't talk all at once."

"Kind of in pain here," Edward barked, but it came out garbled and hoarse, like _Kine ah pin huh_.

Alphonse giggled and walked across the room to us. His shoes clacked on the oak floor and he took a seat in the chair next to me, eyeing his brother with a slightly disappointed gaze. I hid my face in my hands. My palms pressed against my eyelids and made me see stars on the black canvas of my mind. I sighed again, this time inaudibly. I could feel my chest tightening and I could feel myself getting _funny_ down there. Again.

I was proud. I wasn't going to deny that. I felt horrible that I didn't beat that witch Sen to a pulp, but I was proud that Edward had reacted so severely; that he'd flipped out and gotten himself in trouble (again, that's nothing new) because somebody said something about me. About him. About _us_. I knew he wouldn't take any shit from people, and of course I wouldn't either. Sitting there, watching the dancing pins of light on the blackness of my eyelids, I realized that it made me feel so loved that he would do that. And it made me feel something so frightening and yet so alluring that I squirmed around in the chair.

"Winry, are you okay?" was Alphonse's response to my action.

"Yes," I squeaked from my hands, not moving.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," I said again.

I heard Edward snort and I aimed a blind kick in his direction. The two boys laughed, and I guessed I had sent my heel into a range nowhere near the blonde battle hero. "Whatever!" I shrieked, and pressed my thighs together, wondering if that would help my current situation. Edward and Alphonse both erupted into laughter and I picked up on the click of the door opening, the clacking of someone's shoes, and then Mr. Wardell saying, "Alright, you guys, come into the office and we'll sort this one out."

I slowly lifted my head from my palms, peering after Ed and Al as they walked. Al hesitated, and then followed his brother and the principal out of the nurse's office. After a few seconds I rose to my feet and smoothed my dress down over my thighs, and closed the door after me as I left the room. The routine was Edward Go Into Office, Alphonse and Winry the Accomplices Sit Outside and When the Arguing Stops, Go In and Tell the Real Story Because Edward is Such a Troublemaker Mr. Wardell Has Trouble Believing Him.

I settled down beside Alphonse on the bench against the lobby wall. Mr. Wardell closed the door behind him, Edward and Christoph disappearing into the office. Al sighed and looked up at the ceiling.

I turned my gaze down to my fingers, curling and uncurling near my upper thighs. The lobby was absolutely quiet except for the clock on the wall, ticking with infuriating repition. My lashes lowered.

I found it really…hot. I wanted him to push me against a wall, as soon as he came out of the school office, and, with his recovering injuries and his sore muscles, I wanted him to press his hand against my waist and kiss me really hard and passionately; I wanted his other hand to go up my dress and into my panties (I was wearing the really nice pair today; black with a white band and bow, and very tiny ruffles near the leg-holes) so that he could get rid of this embarrassing but lusty feeling, wanted him to whisper into my ear that he wanted me to make him feel this way too; I wanted him to touch me in places that I _know _he wanted to, and that I know _I_ wanted him too, I –

"Winry?"

I jumped, and my eyes widened. I felt myself blush like hell and whipped my face around to greet Al's worried one.

"Winry, do you think he's mad at me?"  
"What are you talking about?" I cried breathlessly, slumping back against the wall.

"I don't know. Maybe he was just hurting."

I smiled and closed my eyes for a moment. Then I looked at him and tucked some hair behind my ear, my smile widening. "He was. He got hit pretty hard, hunh? He's just a stubborn idiot. But he can fight."

"He could have kept going," Alphonse agreed with me, copying me and leaning back against the wall. Then he tilted his head and leaned on me. My smile softened sadly and immediately I felt guilty and dirty for my thoughts. I peered at his cherubic face and his concerned frown, and then pushed some hair out of his eyes.

"Don't worry, Alphonse," I said after a moment, listening to someone's loud voice from within the office. "It's just Ed. He'll never change. I don't see any reason for him to be mad at you." I waited a second, my smile fading, and then bursting up again. I straightened up, nudging him with my fingertip. "Do you want me to come over after school to help with chores?"

_Naughty, naughty, naughty_, I hissed at myself. _All you want is to corner Ed, you're dragging Al in with you, this is horrible, think of innocent Alphonse_.

"That would be great," he breathed, resonating mock exhaustion. "Geez, Ed is just so lazy. I have to do everything again." There was a silence, and then he laughed and looked at me with a bright grin. "I sound like a parent! Again!"

I giggled and hugged him tight. He snorted and hugged me back. Sometimes I think that me and Al _need_ each other, or else Edward would drive us both freaking insane. "Of course, I'll come over and I'll make dinner. Just don't tell Ed. He won't eat it; he'll think I'm trying to poison him."

Alphonse laughed heartily and nodded.

The thoughts hid in the back of my mind for later.


	6. Hero of Young Age

**Disclaimers: Don't own FMA.**

**A/N: Alphonse's POV. (Any typos, please excuse.)**

-

_Hero of Young Age_

-

Risembool is a very rural town. You can walk to anything, from anywhere. Our house is only about a half an hour away from the central area of town, and thusly just a half hour away from the school. Our empty house resides amongst the notorious hills of Risembool, just five minutes down a sloping road from the Rockbell home.

I shifted my bag from one shoulder to the other, chancing a peek at my brother and Winry. Both were squabbling with each other about his injuries, his temper, his ego, his idiocy, etc, etc, the normal conversation between them. I quirked into a smile and turned my face to the other side, peering out across the tumbling rock wall that lined the road and down the hillside towards a farm; some kid was chasing a flock of sheep from one side to the other, where another person was waiting with food. My stomach twisted up a little in a stifled growl.

Brother's voice rose up as he howled at Winry and squeaks weaved in and out of his irate words. Winry's voice rose in turn to a high octave, and her ranting beat out his, ending in a grunt and a snort from Edward. The grass was rippling like the water in the river, the sun glinting off every blade. It was actually really pretty. I wished I could take a photo.

"Al, did you hear me?" Edward was leaning in towards me, his brows raised up high. I jumped, blinking a few times, but my pace remained steady. Winry was peering at me with an innocent, curious expression.

"Um…no, sorry, brother," I murmured, smiling a little more. "What?"

"I asked if you thought it was safe for Winry to be cooking dinner for us," he repeated, to which he got a rough shove and almost stumbled into me.

"Ahh, _hey_!" he shrieked, fwapping at Winry with newfound ire and cheek. Winry emitted a bubbly laugh and started running up the last few yards of the hill.

"Alphonse, c'mon," she called back to me. I glanced at Edward, fuming beside me and rubbing at his side, and then broke into a sprint as I cracked a wide grin.

"Catch up, brother!" I cried, and Winry and I cackled as he threatened us with raspy impertinence.

The laundry line was strung tight between two wooden poles, sticking up in the shade of a large tree. The windows were open and airing the house out. I felt a frown tug at my face as I realized that the garden was getting a little overgrown.

"Winry," I said, leaning towards her a bit as we strode through the yard, my brother panting and stumbling up the hill after us, still a few moments from catching up to us in the lawn. She raised her brows and looked at me. "Would you mind weeding that?"

She followed my finger and looked at the garden. She smiled. "You're so funny, Al."

"What?" I felt myself blush and I frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"That was your mother's, I know that much. I didn't know you guys still grew things in it. I guess I never really noticed."

"Ed doesn't care. I do, though; I know that brother appreciates Mom in other ways."

"Of course," Winry agreed, dropping her bag near the threshold to our house. "I'll work on it right away, okay? Hey, didn't your guys' mom used to grow tomatoes and cabbages and other stuff in here, not just flowers? How come you don't anymore?"  
"Don't really cook much," I mumbled. I looked over my shoulder as I heard my brother huff something. He caught my glance and pouted.

"Well thank you for being _patient_ you guys!" he snapped, throwing his bag onto Winry's. "I'm a little _tired_ after today, but that's okay, just leave me on the road!"

Winry giggled from where she had kneeled in front of the garden. She rested her hands on her knees and tilted her head and examined it silently. I watched her, my bag still hanging from my shoulder. Brother stomped over to us and put his hands on his hips, his left cheek puffing out and burning pinkish-purple.

"What's so interesting about some stupid weeds?"

I looked at Edward. Winry looked at Edward. We both just stared at him until he recoiled, looking a little startled and upset.

"What?" he sputtered, and then threw open the front door and stormed inside. Winry shook her head and reached up, pulling on my hand.

"I'll work on this okay?" She smiled at me. "Go drag him out here and have him help you with some other chore."

I nodded curtly and smiled in return, before making my way into the house as well. I pulled the front door open all the way and pushed the block of wood in front of it, leaving it open to let in some fresh air and a little more light than the windows allowed. The kitchen in front of me looked bare but still clean. I tried not to let a frown consume my whole face, and said, "Brother, have we done the laundry yet?"

"It needs to be put on the line," he called back, his voice sounding far away. I didn't see him, but I knew where he was. And I was right; he came walking into the threshold between the kitchen and the living room, directly across the room from me, holding an apple from the apple bin in the corner. It was missing a chunk and his right cheek was puffed out nearly as much as his left.

"Will you help me with that?" I went on, reaching back outside and pulling our bags into the kitchen to make sure no bugs got into them. We'd already learned our lesson with that one.

"What about my apple?" he replied, sounding completely puzzled, his voice squeaking on every other syllable. I grinned.

"Finish it?"

"How can I do it that fast?"

"Where'd you put the wet laundry anyway?"

"In the bathroom." He sunk his teeth into the apple again, his victim bleeding sweet juice all over his lips. He blinked.

"How long has it been sitting in there?"

"Since yesterday."

I stopped moving and looked at him, utterly indifferent but about to laugh my face off. Of course he would be the one who left the wet laundry to mold away in our dark, cool bathroom. I pointed down the hall, my lips twitching with a stifled smile. "Can you get it so we can hang it out?"

"Yuh," he grunted, and disappeared with heavy, rapid footsteps that traveled down the hallway. Momentarily he returned with a basin full of (surprisingly, still sodden) clothes, the apple resting on top like a cherry on a sundae. He frowned crossly and stomped across the kitchen towards me.

"These are heavy," he grumbled, and nudged past me out into the sunlight. I giggled and followed him, grabbing the side of the basin that he needed a spotter on. Helping him across the yard towards the laundry line, I handed him his injured apple daintily after we'd set the metal basket down into the grass. He took it and thanked me with a grunt, taking another bite and licking over his lips.

There was a little tin bucket attached to one of the wooden poles with chicken wire. I flipped up the lid and took out a pin, holding my other hand out for an article of clothing. A gust of wind rushed past us, making the clothes on our bodies and our hair dance around slightly. I curled my fingers tightly onto the wet T-shirt to make sure it didn't blow away and then pinned one corner up onto the wire. My fingers searched for another pin and that's when I heard my brother say,

"Uh oh."

I looked at him, my eyes wide, naming off the things he could possibly have done, and past his guilty, innocent face I saw Winry working away diligently and lovingly at the garden.

Edward had gotten out a white bed sheet, and when another breeze had shoved roughly at us, the partially dry cotton had been yanked from his grip and was now dancing elegantly down the hill, hovering inches above the grass as the wind kept up.

"Great!" Brother squalled, ducking under the T-shirt I had hung and darting after the sheet, flailing. "Al, _help_!"

I dropped the pin back into the bucket and, laughing, ran after him. He was running full-force down the hill, jumping and reaching for the sheet as I caught up to him. "Stop, stop! Stop it now I tell you! Stop flying away you bastard, I'll rip you to shreds!" he was screeching. From the lawn, as we went further and further away from the house, I heard Winry call after us, "What the heck are you guys doing?"

"Brother, you're such an idiot!" I said once I was just a few inches away from him, both of us clawing at the sheet as it (somehow) stayed just beyond our reach. Another wild zephyr swirled it higher in the air and we both sped up simultaneously. I looked at him as he looked at me furiously.

"Why do you say that?" he barked.

"Because you're so proud," I said back, pinwheeling as I almost tripped. "Because – " I inhaled sharply and grabbed his arm as he almost fell in turn. " – you try so hard to be the hero for everyone and then you get hurt instead and you don't let anyone be a hero for you!"

He looked towards the sheet and jerked forward, pumping the air with his knees and his feet and his fists. His eyes went blank and then thoughtful and then determined. He jumped up high and snatched a corner of the sheet, howling with triumph as he did so and tumbling down a few feet to a stop. I skidded as we reached a curve where the grass turned into dusty road and stood on the edge, smiling at him, catching my breath with heaving shoulders, my hands on my knees.

"I don't need a hero," he panted, lying on the road and hugging the damp sheet to his chest. He touched his left cheek and I could tell he fought a wince. "I'm fine just how I am. My own consequences, you know."

"Equivalency," I shot back, straightening up and folding my arms behind my back, offering him my brightest smile. "Someday someone is going to be your hero, and I know that you're not going to like it."

"I don't need one, I said," my brother snapped at me. He frowned sincerely and sat up, trying to fold the sheet in his lap. His clothes were covered in more dirt smears than had aroused earlier. Winry's voice floated down on another breeze, something shrill and incomprehensible. Edward's hair blew off his face in the wind and I could see the band-aids on his temple. He climbed to his feet and brushed past me, stomping back up the hill.

I followed him.

"Hey," I said quietly after we'd reached the top, where Winry stood at the edge of the yard with her hands on her hips and a tight pout. Her hands were covered in green and soil smudges. Brother glanced at me silently. "If you want," I went on, loud enough for both Winry and Edward to hear me above the rustling of the tree's branches and leaves, "I can go up to Granny for a while. I actually like to watch what she does with the wires and the iron. If I weren't studying so hard with alchemy" – I quickly looked between Edward and Winry, a little apprehensive – "then I bet I would be training for an apprenticeship with automail engineering like you, Winry!"

Brother groaned, rolling his eyes. "I can't believe this! Another mechanic geek!"

"Shut up, you stupid scientist!" Winry squealed, snatching the sheet from him. They both looked at each other silently for a minute, and then laughed. I smiled brightly and brushed my hands on my jeans. I don't know why I did that.

"Okay, well I'll go now. Come and get me when dinner is ready, unless you've changed your mind about Winry making it?" I waited.

"Yeah," she said slowly. "Just come get us when it's ready up there. Tell Granny that we'll be finishing up the chores."

"Laundry," Ed added in a mumble, yanking the sheet back and moving towards the line again. Winry smiled softly at me and touched my shoulder.

"I'll take good care of the garden," she murmured, and then turned and ran off with Edward, giving him a light shove. I heard their laughter and I have to admit that my heart sunk just a little. I felt left out, yes. But I knew that I needed to be a good brother, too.

And I knew, as I turned to head up the hill to the Rockbell house, by the way that they looked at each other, standing there under the laundry line, that they had other plans than chores.

I knew by the look in their eyes that they wanted to do _the intimate thing_.


	7. Take Your Medicine

**Disclaimers: FMA not mine.**

**A/N: Winry's POV. (Any typos, please excuse. I'm completely flustered today with packing to go to my bastard father's and other shit like that, so my thoughts are scattered. If this isn't up to standards with the other chapters, it will get better I promise. )**

-

_Take Your Medicine_

-

I glanced at him sideways. He stretched into a long yawn, his eyes squeezing shut. I snorted, but I smiled, and tightened my arms around his waist, scooting closer and nestling my head against his shoulder. He blinked, looking at me weird.

"What?"

"Nothing."

Edward grunted and turned his head, kissing my forehead quickly. My stomach churned excitedly. Maybe it showed on my face, because he laughed and then nuzzled his nose into my temple. I moved my legs, readjusting them so that the breeze wouldn't billow up my dress anymore, curling my toes inside my shoes. The laundry was hung up and fluttering wildly in the August afternoon. I had thrown the weeds out across the road so that their roots wouldn't (easily, at least) find their way back to the garden; my dirty hands I had doused under the sink in the kitchen, and met Ed slumped against the side of the house in the shade of a dancing tree.

"Hey," he had drawled, giving me one of his cat-nap grins. I rolled my eyes and tried to pull him up, saying that we needed to finish cleaning the _inside_ of the house, but he had overpowered me and yanked me down to sit beside him.

I looked to him again, my frown fading. I looked at his lips, and his nose, and his eyes. He caught my gaze and locked his onto mine, and I quickly turned my face the opposite way. I could never stare into his eyes when he was staring back into mine; his were too deep, too strong, too…too frocking _amazing_. I felt him snicker silently and hug me tighter.

"You're stupid," he muttered. I whipped my face around to send him a truly appalled, open-mouth glare.

"What?" I squealed, giving him a quick, holding my dress down with one hand.

Edward laughed, rolling away from me and almost into the garden. I sat there, glowering, sitting up straight and rigid, gripping the hem of my dress to keep it from flying up. Finally he stopped rolling on his stomach and curled gentle fists onto the grass, glancing at me with slit eyes. His hair fell and his arm was lying in a position so that all I could see were his (frocking amazing) eyes.

"Why can't you look at my eyes?" he asked quietly.

He _always_ catches me off guard like that.

I hate him for it.

I jumped slightly, and stared at him again, this time a little taken aback and nervous. My brows furrowed. I could feel him smiling at me. My heart was pounding rapidly in my chest, and my skin was crawling upwards, my cheeks red-hot. Averting my gaze I slowly stood up, keeping my dress down as I did.

I opened my mouth to say something, then totally lost my thought, and snapped it shut. He snorted. I smiled, and turned, pattering into the house. I heard him follow me and it made me jump again when he grabbed my hand. I glanced over my shoulder silently, and I almost recoiled at the fiery look in his eyes. Maybe he didn't notice what it did to me – my cheeks reddened even more and I froze, my throat tightening a little.

He took a step, pressing me up against the kitchen table, still holding my wrist, his fingers tickling mine. I drew in a breath, staring at his neck and then turning my gaze up (just a little, hah) to meet his steady one. His mouth was closed in a firm but gentle line, his eyes half-open and burning, but very calm. I think there was a spark of apprehension, but if there really was I wouldn't have noticed because I was the walking definition of apprehension at the moment. My breath started to increase as he leaned in more, and I don't know why, because he's kissed me like this before…

Maybe it was because my thoughts were coming back.

My arms found their way around his waist and pulled him closer. He didn't seem daunted. His lips dusted mine for a second, before they opened partially and we were kissing really soft and slow. I tilted my head off to the side slightly, letting my eyes shut.

Then I got another idea.

I opened my eyes slowly, just half-way, and leaned back a little more, causing him to lean more on me. The table was digging into my ass but that was okay. He looked so intent, his kiss getting more and more tender; his brows were furrowed delicately and his eyes shut, a look of complete pleasure grazing his features. I paused, leaving my mouth open on his, letting his lips work for a few seconds, before he realized what I had done and stopped, himself, peering out at me with his own slit eyes.

"What?" he murmured on my mouth.

"You make me feel weird," I said quickly, and immediately I didn't know if it had been the right or wrong thing to say. I felt my face heat up more, and my brows furrowed. His lips closed and my open ones were resting on his.

"What are you talking about?" he mumbled hoarsely, the pleasure leaving his eyes and confusion clouding in. My stomach dropped and then twisted up tightly. I knew he didn't know exactly what I meant and it made me love him even more for being so stupid. I stared at him silently for a moment, just breathing on his mouth and feeling him fidget slightly as he waited for me to go on; the more I opted to do what I was thinking the more anxious (but tempted) I felt.

"It's a really odd feeling," I whispered, trailing my hands off his tailbone and towards his hips. He froze, looking at me skeptically. I smiled as sweetly as I could, and then turned my face off his, murmuring into his neck as he loomed over me, my fingers sliding up into his shirt. My stomach rose up into my throat and my heart was beating so hard I was shaking a bit, but I wanted to give him a taste of his own medicine. To an extreme.

Edward took a slow breath, slumping on me. I shifted, so that I was a bit straighter, but still allowed him to lean on me comfortably. I could see the front door and the breeze flitting by, making the lawn dance and the clouds in the sky beyond the hills thin out to wisps. He nosed his way up to my ear, and said in a raspy whisper, making me freeze in turn, "Do you mean…feel weird, in your panties?"

My breath caught in my throat and I pinched the skin my fingers had found. He howled in my ear and I giggled, smoothing my hands along his stomach. "Shh, you're ruining my plan," I hissed, but I was smiling. I looked to the floor, and for a moment I thought, _Somebody needs to wash that_.

I turned my head and kissed at his ear. He tensed up and his breath hitched with a squeak. I blinked, eyeing him some, and then smiled faintly and started to kiss up and down the outer shell of his ear, sighing against it, letting my tongue flick out on his lobe. His fingers curled into tight fists on the cloth of my dress (surprisingly, guess where? My upper thighs.) and he squirmed; and I know he was trying his hardest not to let me hear his gasps and whimpers, which were all squeaking, hoarse inhalations either way because of his constant rasp.

I nosed against his ear now, letting my breath dust his neck. His fingers crawled towards my crotch and for some reason it didn't make me as nervous as I'd expected. I let out a long sigh, my eyes falling half-open, and then quickly pushed his hands away with one of mine.

"No," I said. "I'm giving you a taste of your own medicine, Mr. Touchy Feely."

I didn't want to look at him because I knew that if I did, he would look so helpless, so flustered, so _pissed_ at me, but utterly loving what I was doing, that I wouldn't be able to take it. I'd tell him to kiss me, to touch me, to do _the thing_ that fulfills love; I'd completely crumble.

I traced my hands around his waistband until I found the button and zipper of his denim pants. They lingered there as I tried to think of what I was supposed to do, how stupid I was for telling him I was going to do something, and then I touched his stomach and immediately bit my lip in regret as he flinched.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry!" I whispered rapidly. "I forgot your bruises."

In fact I'd forgotten all his injuries; his purple cheek looked normal to me now.

"Shh," he cooed into my ear. "That's okay."

My heart gave a light jump and then started to pummel my chest again. I unbuttoned his pants and let my fingers see for me; I felt the soft cotton of his boxers and I pushed my fingers into the elastic band of those. He tensed up thoroughly on me, his hands moving up and down my back. I let my fingers tickle all over his abdomen, gingerly, because of his bruises, and his hips and a few inches into his boxers, all the while starting to get more and more nervous. His hands were soothing though and his breath made me shiver horribly.

Then I decided to go lower. My fingertips brushed something incredibly warm and slightly hard, compared to the rest of his skin, and my eyes shot open all the way, my breath catching in the very back of my throat again.

Jerking my hands out of his boxers and out of his pants, my knuckles hit his stomach and he groaned; I curled my fists under my chin and ducked my head, hiding my face against his shoulder and shuddering, squirming around slightly.

"Ed, Ed, Ed, Ed, Ed," I started to squeak over and over. I refused to look at him again. I didn't want to see the fear or the disappointment or the puzzlement on his face. I could hear it in his voice anyway.

"I – I…what? What? Are you scared?"

I took in a long, shrill breath, and nodded.

There was a silence, and then I felt him button his pants, and then hug me really tight. "S'okay," he murmured into my ear, his voice not squeaking but shaking. "Maybe we're going too fast."

"But I want you to do that to _me_!" I cried, hiding my face in my palms now. I wanted to cry.

Edward's voice cracked a slight raspy grunt. He tried to say something but it was just more squeaky grunts. I hugged him tight against me, shaking my head back and forth on his shoulder.

"Winry…" he said, but then he was quiet. I knew he was thinking, and I was so pissed at myself that I'd made him concentrate like that again. Finally he pulled away and looked at me with an embarrassed smile, a smile that made him look so much older than he really was.

"Let's go back up to your house. They might get suspicious or something."

My heart sunk. I'd failed in my medicine-dosage. I frowned, and stepped forward, hugging him tight and hiding my face in his neck.

"Sorry," he mumbled, and I shook my head quick.

"No, I'm sorry," I said squeakily. "I love you Edward."

He was quiet again. Then he smiled and pulled me with him as he walked out the door, moving the wood block and letting it shut. "I love you too," he mumbled. "Equivalent exchange, Winry. Just wait."

I watched him as he laced fingers with me. He didn't look at me. Then he led me out to the road and started to walk towards my house. I squeezed his hand apologetically.

Maybe our minds are working too fast for our bodies. Maybe we're just too nervous to do something. I knew by the way his eyes were burning at me that he _wanted_ to do something to me, too.

I think I ruined it.

He glanced at me silently, his eyes smiling, and I smiled back with my mouth. He tightened his grip on my hand and I moved closer, wanting to apologize again for my stupid girlish anxiousness.

"I love you," Ed said again.

"I love you too."

I do.


	8. Never Underestimate Culpability

**Disclaimers: I don't own FMA.**

**A/N: Edward's POV. (Any typos, please excuse.)**

-

_Never Underestimate Culpability _

-

My jaw ached horribly. I gave up on eating dinner for the night, merely pushing the food from side to side of my plate. Everyone, I guess, had noticed the difference, because both Alphonse and Winry were sneaking worried glances at me, and Granny had made more coffee than she did in the morning – I think I even saw her ease a few drops of her whiskey into it. Not that it tasted any different; and it stung either way on the inside of my left cheek.

Winry sat beside me, her hand, under the table, touching my hip or my knee or my free hand, hidden near my lap, secretly. She locked fingers with mine and squeezed gently. I flicked a grain of rice in the direction of her plate. Alphonse speared some salmon and ate it, watching Winry and I carefully as he chewed.

The room was abnormally quiet. Maybe it was because I was always the loud one, and when I wasn't being loud no one else had anything to say or do. Granny was sitting at the head of the table, smoking her pipe and toying with a slender bone she'd extracted from her salmon. I wiggled my fingers around within Winry's and forced another forkful of rice, but only had to switch everything to my right cheek. Why could I eat an apple so easily, but not salmon and rice? Fucked up logic if you ask me.

I glanced to Winry and frowned deeply, looking back to my plate. My head was hung a little as I stabbed the salmon over and over. I pulled my hand away from hers and fell still; slumped a bit to make sure that my hair hid my face. I could feel my brother watching me with that tender concern he always held, and I swallowed the lumps of rice with a clenched throat.

No matter how hard I tried I couldn't get over the fact that I felt Winry was deeply hurt. I mean, I was fucking embarrassed, but I didn't want to upset her. She'd told me she wanted me to touch her, and I have to admit, after her messing around with my ear, I'd wanted to feel her hands too. Were we doing something wrong? Was she scared of me? Why were we so nervous? Did _I _do something wrong? Did I not react enough? Did she think I was forcing her to touch me?

I snuck another glimpse in her direction and found her biting her lip as she picked up her glass of water. Her hand was curled into a fist on her thigh. She looked like she was about to cry again.

"Winry," I muttered, feeling my brows furrow with a troubled expression, and I lifted my head halfway. My face burned as I felt the powerful gazes of both Alphonse and Granny as Winry looked at me, all three waiting for my answer.

She peered at me sadly for a minute, and then smiled. I knew she was forcing it. That only made me slump down further, my heart sinking down lower and lower into my stomach. Suddenly, I was actually _not hungry_. I swallowed nothing, my mouth and throat dry.

Then I did the only thing that I could think of that would tell her more than I could through my words right now. I looked back to my plate, but under the table, I slipped my hand up her knee and under her dress, my fingers brushing the panties that guarded her crotch. I shifted. I could feel myself getting kind of _happy_ down there. Again. Like she had made me feel earlier. My stomach knotted up and I wanted to just look at her and yell, "Goddammit, Winry, I wanna have sex with you but do you think we're just way too young?"

I'm very impatient.

So either way, I'm determined to do what I can to her.

And I know she wants it.

I felt her leg muscles tense beneath my palm. I sensed her nervousness just as much as I did my own. Her fork clinked as she went silent. I saw her stare down at her dish of food with wide eyes and scarlet cheeks.

Then she moved her position around, spreading her legs slightly, beneath her dress. I poked her in her thin-cotton-covered crotch, and then I started to laugh. She giggled anxiously in turn, and Al and the old bat stared at us like we were completely loony.

Dinner was finished with a less tense air. Alphonse and I opted (well, I did; who knows what I might have done if we stayed longer, and besides that I wanted to work on our studies) to go home directly afterwards. Granny took her pipe into the kitchen, cackling and throwing jests back at mine. I grabbed Alphonse's arm and snapped, "Fine, we'll leave the dishes for you hags. Besides, we have research to do."

I caught a look in Granny's eyes I couldn't define, but I brushed it off. I looked at Winry and grinned, waving slightly.

"See you at school," I said slowly, and then Alphonse dragged me out the door.

The night was cooler than usual as August slowed into September. I hunched my shoulders and growled at the fireflies. Al was more quiet than usual. Finally, I looked to him in the dying dusk and said, "What's up?"

"Things just seemed very…uneasy. Do you know what I mean?"

I peered at him through the corner of my eye, before tossing hair out of my face and breaking into a toothy grin. "Nah." I crossed my arms and rubbed at my bare skin, prickled in the crisp evening with goose-bumps. "I guess it was just a slow night, hunh?"  
"Are you and Winry fighting?"

"No." I looked at him like he was crazy. "Why…?"

"I…never mind." Alphonse shook his head rapidly.

I watched him, my grin fading. After a moment I nodded and slowed down my pace, trudging through the grass as we started into our front yard. "Okay," I mumbled, opening the door for him. He walked in silently, and I closed it, locking it after me.

It was nearly completely dark in the kitchen. I fumbled for the lamp in the corner and flicked it on, casting myself and my brother in a glow of light that seemed almost ethereal. I offered him a tiny smile and he smiled wide in return.

"Time to wade deeper into sin?" I murmured. He gave a curt responsive nod, and disappeared into the shadowy hall.

I followed.

By the den was a proverbial work station supplies: there were two folded quilts outside the door, two pillows, and one thin, large blanket. There was a candle in its holder, some matches, three extra thirteen inch white candles, and our designated books. They were stacked in two piles: one for me and one for Al. Al picked up the pile of bedding and entered the den. I gingerly gathered up the material for lighting, my eyes drifting up and down the stacks of books.

My pile consisted of, at the top, one book on human biology, two books on transmutations, the former going into deep concentration on their works, their arrays, and anything that had to do with them; under the said three books were two more books on alchemy, one a big thick one with the history of nearly every alchemist known to Amestris, and the bottom being a rather large and bulky (about five inches thick, and a little over a foot tall), dusty old book. That one interested me the most, but it also made me angry every time I read it.

It was my father's.

There were diagrams sporadically throughout the book that he himself had drawn, notes he had taken in chicken-scratch I got migraines trying to decipher, arrays and charts he had written; at least one third of the book was on human transmutation and anything related to it, another third in a completely different language, and another third on any other type of transmutation and anything needed for the former and latter.

I never let Alphonse see that book. I always kept it with my pile. If he knew that I'd found writings that were so close to step-by-step directions on the exact thing we wanted to proceed with…I don't know. But I wasn't going to let him see it until I understood it completely myself.

Everything we read, everything we shared, everything in those books all mentioned the same thing: the Philosopher's Stone. Maybe that was what we needed. But until I'd grasped everything that book said, every minute detail, about human transmutation, until I knew precisely what we were doing – I wouldn't bring that up. After all, you didn't necessarily need the legendary stone for biological alchemy, from what I'd read.

I'd assigned my younger brother about eight books on biology and the make-up and form of humans, two of which had to do to with human alchemy and transmutation, but not in the detail and exactness of the ones I read. I wasn't trying to hog the studies, I swear – I just didn't want to make my brother as guilty as I was, if that made sense.

After all, his eyes were getting deeper and deeper, until I didn't know how old the boy sleeping on the den floor beside me was. I didn't want to ruin his innocence, take away his childhood; I didn't want to make him miserable with knowledge.

If I did that…I don't know how I'd ever make up for it. It made me uneasy to think about it.

So I had him memorize every ingredient we needed and made sure he relayed it to me every day, three times a day, until we both knew it perfectly. We created the Teratomas Code – the recitation that was secret so that we could say it during school and no one would know.

"Brother?"

I jumped and dropped a candle. It hit the floor and rolled into the den. I looked from it to Alphonse, who was standing in the middle of the cluttered, dusty, dismal room with a bright smile and slit eyes, arms behind his back.

"Ah, dammit," I grunted, shuffling over and picking it up. I set the items in my arms down beside the blankets and glanced back to my brother. "What?"  
"Nothing." He giggled. "I was making sure you didn't space again."

"Oh, hahah, very funny, Al," I grumbled, sitting down with another loud grunt and striking the match to light the first candle. "Hurry up and bring the books in. I feel like I've been slacking again and my head is really ready for all this tonight."

In other words, Edward Elric needs to get his mind off of a certain girl or else he might go insane with yearning.

Al nodded brusquely and hurried out into the hallway. I turned my head around the room with cat-slit eyes. The candle made everything bounce with shadows that gave them immense deformities. There were tall bookshelves (about seven) that were loaded with books, most in different languages, and otherwise ones we'd both already read at least twice. I could spout anything from any book in that room, with perfect clarity.

Alphonse brought his wavering stack of books in and set them down on his side of the room. I put the candle in the middle of our little work station as he pattered back out to the hall to get my tower of texts.

My father is an odd bastard. There's a suit of armor, about eight to ten feet tall, standing beside his desk. His desk having been cleared off by our hungry hands and minds, all articles or books read through thoroughly. The whole room was cluttered with arrays and posters and papers and books and strange things that Al and I had found very useful in our biological transmutation studies – jars of things you'd never suppose you'd find in a house of two young orphans.

It made me wonder what happened to my mother, for real.

I shook my head rapidly as Al set my books down beside me. I tossed the pillow to him and he yelped as he tried to catch it before it hit the flame of the candle. I grinned and kicked his quilt over. "There you go, you baby. Let's go."

There was no window in this room, making it incredibly dark. I closed the study door and then Alphonse and I were alone in the den with a few candles and a brain-murdering amount of books. I sat down and took out the big book from the bottom of my stack as my brother took out his notebook and started to do his normal routine: jotting down the formulas he'd memorized, before he started to memorize even more.

I couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt as I watched Al. He was so innocent. He still looked like a cherub, still childishly angelic. I wondered if I'd ever look that way again, and I voted against it before I even had time to finish the thought. After all, what was I now? Temper, hunger, impulse, intellect, Winry-based, determination, and perhaps one of the youngest alchemists in Amestris, other than Al anyway. That was the furthest from child I could get at the age I was. Eleven, nearly twelve. Maybe fifteen mentally.

Al looked at me and blinked. "What?" he asked, his pencil poised above his neat handwriting momentarily.

I shook my head and pushed my nose into the book. It smelled old. I frowned at the words. I'd opened up to the part that was written in a different dialect.

My goal for tonight was probably going to be extremely difficult to obtain.


	9. Sweet Slumber Sweet Child

**Disclaimers: I don't own FMA.**

**A/N: Alphonse's POV. (Any typos, please excuse.)**

-

_Sweet Slumber Sweet Child_

-

Oxygen, forty-three kilograms.

Carbon, sixteen kilograms.

Hydrogen, seven kilograms.

Nitrogen, one point eight kilograms.

Calcium, one kilogram.

Phosphorous, seven-hundred-and-eighty grams.

Potassium, one-hundred-and-forty grams.

I could go on, but those are just the first few on my long review list. My eyes burned from the candle and from reading so much. I was already well into the second book and I was re-reading everything I'd already read. I wanted to make sure I knew everything so I didn't let Brother down.

I glanced up to him. He was intent with what he was doing – he was copying down arrays from the back of a book, measuring their circumference and translating that into the measurements for an actual one, which meant a lot of math and concentration. You could tell how long his calculations were stretching into by how many times his fingers tapped the floorboards.

I picked up my pencil again and underlined a part of a line of text in the book.

_should be noted that there is no consensus on the actual number of cells in the body; estimations vary widely._

I couldn't help but start to feel heavy-headed. I glanced up at the wall. It was nearly eleven-thirty at night, and we'd been up so late the previous night that we'd only had about three hours of sleep. I didn't know how Brother did it.

_Just a little bit_, I told myself. I lowered my head, my nose in the crease of the book. I could still read like this. All I had to do was turn my head a bit to see those weird lines at the top or bottom. I read half a page when the letters started to run together.

"Stop that," I told them, but they didn't. They bled together to make a big black blanket, which fell over me and I curled into it, closing my eyes and feeling my thumb make its way to my mouth. _Childish, childish_, I thought, but then I didn't think anymore.


	10. Thoughts That Refuse to Die

**Disclaimers: FMA not mine.**

**A/N: Edward's POV. (Any typos, please excuse.)**

**Oh my, what have we found in this chapter…? x3**

-

_Thoughts That Refuse to Die_

-

I heard my brother mumble something, but when I looked at him, he was asleep. His thumb was in his mouth. It made my heart sink down low and made me forget completely where I was in my multiplication.

I rolled over onto my back. The cold floorboards gave me a shiver. The shadows danced on the ceiling, too. I folded my arms under my head and frowned, closing my eyes for a moment but not feeling sleepy at all. I instead peered up at the top of the room, watching the shadows move swiftly around, taunting me with their energetic playing.

It had worked for a while, but now that Al was asleep and I was the only one still working, _it was back_.

I squirmed.

I lost myself to the shadowy thoughts of my own mind. I could still feel Winry's lips and tongue moving on my ear, could still feel her hands moving around my stomach and hips and crotch. Every time I hugged her or held her close I could feel every curve of her body. Her lips were soft and warm and sweet and the looks she gave me sometimes made me get kind of hard.

I covered my face with my hands. I was starting to feel that way again, that way where my stomach twisted up in a wonderful sensation that made my heart leap and jump and my skin crawl with heated shivers. I wanted to get up and walk through the night up the hill to the Rockbell house so that I could see her again, because it was coming back with a malicious laugh and an overwhelming weight.

I heard Alphonse mumble again. I glanced in his direction, and then

_one of my impulsive, bad ideas _

hit me.

"Al," I whispered, sitting up on my elbows, my eyes wide. The second candle was burning wickedly. I nudged my little brother with my fingertip. He shifted and grunted softly.

I crawled towards him, shuddering with the genius of my idea and the utter stupidity and _wrongness_ of it. But then my notorious inclination stabbed my common sense in the back and it tumbled downwards with one last echoing scream.

"Al…" I murmured, smiling at him with slit eyes as he rolled onto his back. He was out. He was out cold. I poked his stomach and his eyes opened so barely that I could hardly tell.

"Mnm…" he whimpered sleepily, and rolled his head from side to side. "Stop moving, you're stealing the covers."

"Sorry, Al," I said in a low husk, laying down beside him with my face inches from his, barely breathing for fear of waking him up all the way, staring at him and lying absolutely still, deciding to go along with him. He was closer to full sleep than he was to being half-awake, and I suppose that was my good luck.

"I'm cold, give me the blankets," he mumbled.

"Are your hands cold?" I said.

Sometimes it amazes me how I can be so evil, so completely _iniquitous_, while being so casual about it as well. I can just push everything away but my nonchalance, and _not care_ and –

"Yeah," he said, drawing it out into one long, groggy sigh, his eyes shutting fully again. I was losing him.

"Let me see them, I know a secret place to put them to be warm, okay? And then maybe in the morning we can make some coffee and cocoa." His hands barely moved as his muscles relaxed further so I took them gently by his wrists and pulled slightly.

"Mm, make them warm, Brother, they're cold…"

Each word was separated by an inhalation or exhalation, heavy and drenched in slumber.

"I will, I will, trust me." I spoke slow and in a whisper, moving his hands even more.

I glanced to the candle, my heart racing, wondering what it would feel like if I were guiding Winry's hands like this. His tiny fingers sought the warmth I led them to and crawled with trance-like sluggishness into my boxers. They were incredibly warm and soft, despite how "cold" he claimed they were. My back arched in immediate response as he curled his digits, his knuckles brushing against my cock. I squirmed around, getting a little harder as I realized that _somebody else's hands were in my fucking pants_.

My eyes slit further and I bit my lip, resonating a sore aching throughout the left side of my face. Alphonse rolled over and nestled up close to me, clearly feeling even chillier.

"Secret place…" he murmured. "Really warm, Brother…how did you do that?"

I couldn't talk for a minute. I had to clear my head of the image of Winry before I prodded his hands lower until one of his fingers was brushing my head, the other my balls. I inhaled slowly through my nose, my brows furrowing.

I didn't know what to say to make him go on, so I said, "It's really warm…just…play with it a little and it'll get warmer…"

My stomach muscles tensed up as his sleepy hands tried to grab onto me. I bit the inside of my lip and fought a squeak as he squeezed just a little too hard. I squirmed around, trying not to kick him. He rubbed his hands on me like one would rub two sticks together to make fire, his palms moving rapidly on the sides of my dick. It was a few minutes of my silence, his gentle, warm hands, and my stifled squirming at the feel of somebody playing with me, before I think he realized what I wanted. In his dream I think he found it differently than what I was thinking, but he found my notion and he shared it.

His fingers curled on me tight and he moved his hands all around, up and down my shaft and my balls and my head, tight and warm and tiny and particular.

I squeezed my eyes shut and thought, _Those are Winry's hands, think about that why don't you_?

I tried to picture her, her eyes half open and her lips parted, her hair falling over her bare shoulders, tried to hear her gasping my name; Alphonse kept stroking me, kept tugging and rubbing and squeezing, and for a second I thought with horror if he was awake and knew what he was doing.

I pushed that away with thoughts of Winry again.

I thought of how it felt to feel her hands on me, whether it was entangled in my hair, on my skin, or around me tight; I thought of the feel of her lips and her breath and her teeth, the way she looked at me and the way she tasted and sounded and felt with her body pressed against mine; I thought of what it would feel like to touch her breast, or her crotch, or her thighs; I wondered what it would taste like to kiss down her body and I could feel my cock getting stiffer and stiffer and stiffer as I thought of the way she'd squirm and pant and say my name. The more I thought the more I wanted to and the more that I wanted to the more that I _knew _that we had to do this. I needed to touch Winry and she needed to touch me. We wanted and needed to get closer. I wanted to show her how much I loved her, and doing all that would show her as best as I could.

That's when something weird happened, something that I was not uninformed of, thanks to books, but something that I really hadn't felt before – not surprising.

But it felt _good_.

My whole body had this unison shudder, sending me hunching forward. My bruised stomach sent waves of pain up with the trembling, and I felt muscles moving as it happened. Down there. Beneath Al's hands and in other places.

I pulled away with a sharp breath, rolling into a bookshelf and causing a few books to topple out and land on me. One landed on my face (ow), one on my stomach (OW MY BRUISES), and one on my crotch (ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow). A few others landed around me with a loud clatter of book-covers. I sat up on my elbows and looked towards Alphonse, startled, panting, my body feeling weak and hot but fucking good, and found him out cold again, lying there with his arms limp out to the side, face tucked into his shoulder.

I sat up all the way and moved the books off my abdomen and lap, and felt my throat clench up. The front of my denim pants was slightly damp and my gaze started to blur with unwanted _tears_. I stared at Al, crossing my arms on my chest and slouching forward against my knees, my brows furrowing.

My common sense caught up with me as I recovered from my climax.

I'd just taken advantage of my little brother because I was horny and wanted to be touched by Winry.

I got up and blew out the candle. I walked to the door and threw it open, wiping at my eyes as I stumbled into the dark hallway.

"Disgusting, you bastard," I mumbled to myself as I went to get a drink of water. When I looked out the window into the night, I found my gaze trailing up the hill towards the Rockbell house as I sniffled pathetically.

There was a light on in a window on the second floor of the house further up the hill. My stomach pinched up again. Maybe tomorrow…I could show Winry how good it felt. But that night, I decided to go to sleep before my thinking problem could kick in and I'd never fall asleep.

On my way past the den as I shuffled towards the stairs I stopped in the threshold and gripped my glass of water tighter. Al was still asleep.

_Innocent_.

A victim of my stupidity.

"I'm sorry," I mumbled, and then climbed the stairs to go up to my bedroom.

I haven't slept in my own bed in weeks. Maybe months.


	11. Note

**A MESSAGE TO _EXPERIMENTATION _READERS**

**Apologies, to everyone, seriously.**

**I have ideas, this is not writer's block.**

**I'm simply stuck at my father's house, and thusly…I cannot risk any documents being found, legal and personal matters, blah blee blah. **

**I will update AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!!!**

**Don't forget me. ;;**

**I just wanted to let you guys know that I am not going to drop this fanfic like a leper's rotted nose or something. –blink.- I have plans. **

**Please don't lose faith in your scatter-brained, so far unreliable author here. Procrastination is the work of the devil. Yus. It is. **

**Hang in there.**

**-dead.-**

**- WHITE SILVER AND MERCURY **


	12. Fears of the Innocent

**Disclaimers: I don't own FMA.**

**A/N: Alphonse's POV. (Any typos, please excuse. It is snowing. I have dial-up. And I am STUCK IN MISSOURI. WHAT. THE. FUCK. Okay. Yuh. This is why it is taking me so long. I promised you guys I'd update, don't think I'd forget you. I'm just stuck in the boonies. Being held hostage by my grandparents and my mother; but it's all good. Because my mechanic is here.)**

-

_Fears of the Innocent_

-

I could hear the birds outside, calling everyone to wake up. I opened my eyes, then squeezed them shut again, rubbing at them with my balled fists. When I opened them again and blinked a few times, my vision cleared slowly. Brows furrowed, I sat up on my elbow, the cold floor pressing into my forearm and making me shiver.

Surveying the den, I found myself alone among the pillows and blankets, the candle doused and light flooding in through the open door.

"Brother?"

Climbing to my feet, I stifled a yawn of reluctant consciousness, wanting to go back to sleep and stay within my slumber all day; I padded out into the kitchen and shivered at the crisp morning air. The sun would rise fully and as it did so it would warm the houses on the hills from the outside in, and if we neglected to open the door and the windows, when we came back after school it would be close to baking inside.

There was no answer to my second call, so I figured he must be up the hill or on the second floor. Turning, I pattered into the bathroom and clicked the light on by pulling the string, then twisted the faucet on and ran my hands underneath the flow of water. It was icy. I splashed some on my face and drew in a squealing breath at the chill.

I fidgeted from foot to foot as I washed my face and my arms and my neck, then brushed my teeth, and ran the comb through my hair. The house, I noticed incredulously, was silent. There were no creaking floorboards, there were no pounding footsteps, there were none of the signs that my older brother was awake, hungry, and ready to get going. Of course, that wasn't as completely odd as it sounded – I had awoken to this kind of hush at least twice before, and Edward had been up the hill at the Rockbell house the whole time.

I grabbed onto my collar and yanked my shirt off over my head, carrying it with me up the stairs to where our bureau still stood in our room. Tossing the clothes I peeled off my body into a pile at my feet, I opened a drawer and pulled out some clean jeans and a white T-shirt. Gathering my dirty clothes under my arm I exited the second floor and drifted silently down the staircase, passing the living room threshold as I walked down the hall.

In the living room, my brother was standing with his back to the doorframe, hands on his hips, peering down at something on the coffee table. I stopped in the threshold, my stomach twisting momentarily; the fact that the house was as quiet as if he was not there, and yet he _was_ there, was more frightening than the aspect that the house was quiet in the first place. For a moment I thought that I was listening to my own heart pound away relentlessly in my ears and I thought in the back of my mind, _I wonder if that's what it sounds like to die? To hear it happen? _before I realized that it was the big grandfather clock towering near the sofa.

"Brother?" I said again, minutely, almost whispering it. It cut through the pale morning stillness painfully and I had to keep myself from flinching in turn as I watched Edward's shoulders twitch in recognition and surprise. He didn't turn around.

"Morning, Al."

His voice sounded amazingly dead, and I knew he wasn't trying to make it sound more jovial; if he were, he would have looked at me and put on a grin, and I might not have been able to tell the difference or not.

I opened my mouth and for a few seconds nothing came out but my shaky breath. Then I said softly, levelly, as if I were speaking to an ill baby, "Yes. Morning."

He bent over and gathered up what he had on the coffee table: papers and some books. He tucked them under his arm and turned, keeping his head down as he strode towards and brushed past me. My heart dropped and my legs turned to jelly, the pit of my stomach tumbling down and my entire body tensing up and then crawling with shivers.

My brother's eyes were red, and that gave me one of the worst scares I think I'll ever have.

"Do you want any breakfast?" I mewled, a pathetic attempt of detective work.

"Nah."

"An apple?"

"Nah."

"Are you sure?" My voice was wheezing now, and I was following after him rapidly as he walked into the kitchen, almost to the point of panic.

Edward stopped and turned halfway, glimpsing at me with a blank look, his eyes slit and, for once, they were completely voiceless. My breath caught in my throat and I swallowed, recoiling slightly and hugging my dirty clothes to my side, fingers curling on the cloth. My heart was pummeling my chest.

"An apple, I guess, would be good," he said flatly, not one ounce of expression emitting with the words.

I nodded rapidly and turned, dropping my dirty clothes near the kitchen threshold. I snatched an apple from the bin and almost ran to the sink, washing it off and then handing it to him. Brother hadn't moved; he was still standing beside the kitchen table, watching me dully, his arms dangling near his sides. His hair made a blonde curtain around his eyes and I wanted to ask him if he was sick, but I knew for sure that, physically, he was as fit as possible.

"Thank you," he murmured as I dropped the apple into his palm. He lifted it to his lips and took a dainty bite, now watching the fruit in his hand as if it would start to voice protest about his mutilating chomps.

I skirted around the other side of the table and hurried to the windows, unlatching them and pushing them open. Then I opened the front door and frowned at the blast of fresh air and sound and light as I propped it open with the block of wood, scrounged for that reason only. I busied myself by striding from room to room on the first floor, opening the windows, then pounded up the stairs to crack the windows in the upper floor.

When I came back to the kitchen, he was gaping at his apple, two chunks missing. His backpack had magically relocated from the study to beside his feet and yet he was still in the same spot. I turned away as quickly as I could, my head spinning. He seemed so uneasy and shaky, so fragile…I snagged my bag from the den and then made my way back to the kitchen.

My brother was slumped, the apple resting on the table beside him. Standing in the threshold, I drew in a breath, trying to ease the alarm rising further in my chest. Edward turned his head up the slightest bit and actually offered me a minute smile, resting his hand on the edge of the table.

"I'm sorry," he muttered.

My heart jerked. I frowned deeply and peered at him with new concern. "Why?"

"I just am. For everything. For dragging you into all this, for ruining your innocence, for making you so exhausted in every way with our studies."

"That's not true!" I exclaimed, dropping my bag. My brother lifted his chin, staring at me with a slight spark in his eyes. He seemed intent on his explanation, and I knew with confidence that he was blaming himself for everything that had ever happened to us, every day, overwhelming himself with the pain and the weight of our problems. And today he was cracking, wasn't he? The most horrible thing I realized as I stared back at him intensely…was that I didn't know what I could, what I _should_, do to make it go away.

"That's not true," I repeated with more force. "You brought this up to me, and I accepted it. I am as guilty for this already as you are." I paused, a terrible sensation of my heart being ripped in two occurring inside me. "I want to bring Mom back, too, Ed," I said slowly, loudly. A smile flickered on his mouth and he shifted, straightening up a bit.

"I know, Al. I know."

"Stop blaming yourself."

"Sure."

"Eat your apple!" I screamed, my hands curling into fists, a position that was so alien to my body that I stood there trembling and glaring and not sure of what else I was supposed to do. But I was acting how I felt, and that was all I _could _do, wasn't it.

Brother's smile only broadened and for a moment his eyes started to shine and I thought he was going to break down and cry in front of me. I took in a large breath and then sputtered, "Brother, are you…have you been…I…are you okay?" The last words of my horrible attempt at gaining authority came out as a shrill squeak.

"Headache, that's all. Got a lot on my mind."

Edward picked up his bag and turned, striding to the door weakly. "Let's head down to school now. I'll be careful; I promise I won't get sick, okay?"

_That's not what I'm worried about_. I wanted to pound that into his stupid obstinate head but I couldn't. I relaxed – or, in other ways, I deflated, completely defeated and nervous and tired already – and surrendered sadly, hooking my own bag on my shoulders. I wanted to ask him if he had been crying, but I had no freaking idea on how. How _did _you ask Edward, notoriously dry-eyed, stubborn, and untouchable, if he had been crying? I knew he had been either way, and tried to dismiss it.

"Brother…" I said. He looked at me with a distant, destroyed look blooming in his golden eyes like explosive petals. "Brother," I repeated, "we're all that we've got. Please don't give up. I'm just worried, that's all. If you don't feel good tell me. Remember what I said about needing a hero?"

"Yeah," he said succinctly, and smiled, and I think it was genuine this time. "I remember."

I smiled brightly in turn and stepped up close to him, pushing my shoulder against his. He looked a little startled, then accepted the gesture and knocked me with his arm in turn.

"It just really hurts sometimes," he mumbled, and turned his face away as we greeted the August sunshine.

"What does?" My hysteria had passed and now I was just the slightest bit uneasy, a little comforted with the fact that I had broken past his tenacity and blankness. I opted to push the anxiety birthed from his red and puffy, tear-stained eyes, out of my head, and succeeded.

"…Being alone, having to become a mother and a father so abruptly, _growing up_." He flashed me a modest smile and I had a sudden urge to hug him, but knew he'd shrug it off. Never mind that, I did it anyway.

He didn't refuse it. So I tightened my arms, suddenly feeling very tiny compared to my brother, though we were essentially the same size.

I suddenly felt very, very tiny.


	13. Methods of a Practical Girl

**Disclaimers: Don't own FMA.**

**A/N: Winry's POV. (Any typos, please excuse.) **

-

_Methods of a Practical Girl_

-

During school, I had been too anxious of my plans for afterwards to even start to worry about Edward. Alphonse had told me during break that he was very distraught today (distant, quiet, and disheartened), but not until I was climbing the steps up to the library and thinking _Look at me, I'm just like Ed now, doing research la la la_ did it really hit me that something was wrong with him.

He had seemed to be clingy, but yet uncomfortable doing anything but holding me. He kept resting his head on my shoulder. He was quiet, smiled more than he usually did. He looked tired, weak, and spent. His eyes didn't speak as much as they normally spoke. My stomach churned as I reached for the handle of the vast library doors.

The hush inside the library comforted me. I swallowed down my nervousness, my heart starting to race uncontrollably. What if he was just upset because of what had happened yesterday afternoon; what if he was upset because he was thinking too much about…about doing that stuff to me? About me being scared?

I stepped up to the front desk and swallowed back my fears that I'd done something wrong. What I was doing right now would make everything better. Of course it would; I mean, come on. I was _researching_.

The woman behind the desk looked over the black rims of her spectacles at me. "Yes?" she murmured, her voice crisp but low, as if that was the highest volume she was able to reach thanks to years of doing librarian work.

"Um…I need the…" I stared at her a moment, frozen, my eyes wide, wondering how the hell I was to phrase this. "I need…the…research section."

She pointed with her pen.

"No, I mean…like…_human_ kind. Like, anatomy, psychology, stuff like that."

She peered at me with impassive, beady eyes.

"Human biology," I added rapidly, feeling my skin crawl with either sweat or shivers, both products of embarrassment. "Physical, emotional, mental, the works of humans, _anything_."

She pointed in a different direction and then advised slowly, "Honey, most of these books you're asking for are very adult. Do you know exactly what you're looking for?"

"I am a very adult person." I looked at her levelly, then added, "Thank you," in a breathless squeak and clacked off towards the bookshelves she had pointed to. I could feel her eyes on me as I did so.

I scanned the shelves, dragging my fingers across the book spines, my brows furrowed in concentration. Alphonse had also told me that he was worried that they were doing their own research too meticulously. The two _never_ told me anything about their research; that Al told me he thought they were doing it to the point of _harm_ meant that something _had_ to be wrong. _Had_ to be. I always told them not to push themselves, but I never doubted that they'd ignore me. Obviously they had.

Had Edward found something in some book that had made him so restless, so despondent? Had he realized that he had no hope? Had he thought too much, something _else_ I told them not to do, and thusly stumbled upon a notion that shattered his entire happiness?  
As I thumbed across the books, not really looking anymore, I realized that he really hadn't seemed very happy the past week. The only possibilities, I thought, trembling, biting my lower lip as my stomach knotted up, were that he had gone too far in his studies, he had been thinking too much, or _I _had done something.

Either way, I was absolutely sure that what I was researching now would make him a little happier.

And my entire disposition brightened up as my finger landed on it. I straightened up and broke into a smile, drawing in a startled breath. "Yes," I gasped, and pulled the tiny hardback book out of the shelf. Opening it up, I felt a shiver crawl up and down my spine and a heat bloom into my face at the minute text and the diagrams.

Snapping the book shut, I turned my gaze back to the shelf and pulled a second book out. Then I tucked them under my arm, and trekked back to the front desk, feeling a sense of accomplishment with fear and unease looming behind it, utter concern and love drenching everything else.

I wasn't all that embarrassed as I handed the books to the librarian, but the look she sent me made me blush deeply. Frowning as adult-like as I could, I said gently, "Get over it."

She stamped the books and sighed, turning her nose up at me. "September 10, they need to be back, Miss. Good luck with whatever…_project_ you're about to commence with."

"Oh!" I said, another idea occurring to me. "I have a question." She sent me another look, one that now read _Shh, voice _down_, you're in a library_. I blushed further. "Um," I went on, "do you have anything on prosthetics, mechanics, stuff like that? Any newspapers or articles or anything documenting current discoveries?"

"No," the old bat told me, and went back to what she was doing. Something inside me was pulled and strung ruthlessly, resonating through my body – my _temper_. I gritted my teeth, but offered her a bright smile, my eyes sharp as I fought a glower.

"Thank you," I said loudly, and took my books, turning and securing my bag on my shoulder. Then I pushed outside and stomped down the concrete stoop, letting the heavy doors bang into the threshold behind me.

Pausing, I looked at the books in my hands and felt my heart flutter in my chest. Oh, yes…I'd make Ed feel better. I wanted to, yeah I did. My face heated up. I was willing to do anything to make sure he was happy. I loved him, _love_ him that much.

Opening my bag, I shoved the books gently into it among my schoolwork, swallowing. As my fingers left the hard covers of the library books, my entire body shuddered with one nervous quake. The titles of the books I'd just checked out were _Sex_ and _Intimate Relationships: Physical, Mental, and Emotional_, both from the psychological section of the human research bookshelves.

I snapped my bag shut and started down the road towards the hills, wondering if Edward and Alphonse were home yet and what they might want for dinner.


	14. Spilled Milk

**Disclaimers: Don't own FMA.**

**A/N: Edward's POV. (Any typos, please excuse. I feel really horrible for taking so long. Sorry. Oh, and © Dir en Grey for the title?)**

-

_Spilled Milk_

-

It was irrational and unrealistic, but somehow I _did _manage to do it. My whole day, people were asking me, "Are you alright?" Maybe my eyes were screaming out to people, because I barely said a word.

Or maybe, that was why people questioned my sanity, my health, my all-around _okay-ness_.

I was getting sick of it. Whenever a friend – even a _teacher_ – looked me in the eyes and asked, "Edward…are you feeling okay?", my thoughts bolted directly back to what was, seriously, wrong with me. It was pissing me off. I just wanted to forget about it.

"Yeah," I kept snapping at them all. "Yeah, I'm fine. Don't worry."

Alphonse had looked guilty and Winry had looked terrified. Honestly, I had felt sick. My stomach was uneasy throughout the day and I had no lunch. I prodded at the tray that I had retrieved from the lunch line and Winry drank my apple juice; Alphonse ate my sandwich. My head was hurting, but not enough to slow me down – it was this weird aching, that stayed in the back of my cranium constantly, like it was my _thoughts_ that were throbbing and not my sinuses. It was as if I was _remembering_ that I had a headache, not really _having_ one. I was listless, and I knew that, and I knew that that stirred up concern in everyone who knew me.

So I resolved that I would box it all up, and neglect it, and shove it into the aching tornado of thoughts in the very back of my brain; and I was really surprised and actually a little accomplished when I realized that I was successful.

I could force myself to forget what I had done.

And it worked. But I'm not stupid; I know that when sleep was slinking towards me, my guilt and my worries and my distress, and everything else that accompanied those, would beat exhaustion and eat away at me until daylight where I would shove it back into that box for twelve hours.

But it worked. A little.

On the way home I lagged behind a bit and slumped, my hands in my pockets. I watched Al as he walked, striding along with a bounce that escorts every kid – for a moment I wondered if I still had that flounce or not. I shrugged it off.

Watching him, I could feel the bottom of my stomach slowly unlatching, sending everything down into my lower abdomen, my leg muscles turning to water and sliding on my bones like jell-o. My heart started to beat the inside of my chest and my throat clenched up, dry, raspy; I attempted to swallow and instead succeeded in choking and hacking on my tongue.

Al spun around and peered at me, puzzled and worried. "Brother, what - …?"

"Nothing, nothing," I coughed. "Just choked on my breath. I'm that stupid."

He offered me a shadow of a smile and waited for me to start walking again. We were less than ten minutes away from home.

"How about…" Alphonse started, touching his lip with the tip of his finger, rolling his eyes out to the side, looking down the steep ditch of the road that eventually swelled into hills, covered in flocks of sheep. I glanced down the hill and noted the lack of sun's sparks floating in the pond. There was a dog running around, supposed to be watching the flocks, but instead playing with them. Up the hill a few chickens were pecking in the road.

"How about what?" I mumbled.

"How about dinner at Winry's?"

"Sounds good. Not like I was going to make anything anyway."

Alphonse flicked a hurt gaze towards me for just a second, and turned his face forward again. "That's a good idea then, right?"

"Yuh," I grunted, tossing hair out of my face with a gentle jerk of my head. The late summer breeze was starting to annoy me; I couldn't walk anywhere at any pace without being blinded by a curtain of hair. It was amusing, too, though. Really.

We passed our house with a mutual thought that we did not even have to bring into words. _Let's just go up there right now. Our house can wait._ Neither acknowledged the shared notion, but simply kept going as if it was the right thing anyway.

"I wonder…what we'll _have_ for dinner," I grumbled.

"Are you hungry now?"  
His words sliced me open sourly, though I knew he hadn't meant it that way. I sent him a harsh scowl. "Maybe," I barked, and shoved past him a few rough steps, now at least a yard ahead of him, scattering two banty-hens out of my way with the swing of a dusty boot.

I could feel him frowning at me. Not out of concern now. Not out of caution. He was getting irritated too. When I turned my face upwards, my stomach nearly got hooked on my ribcage.

The sky was darker than it had been this morning. It was as if the clouds were crawling in according to emotions. The clear August sky was starting to smudge into a pale gray, and the sun was straining to make its way through the blooming thunderheads. Another breeze blew and for the first time I realized that it was chilly. Had I just been that oblivious, so sunken in my thoughts that I hadn't noticed the change in weather?

I glanced back towards my little brother.

Maybe I had been.

We reached the Rockbell house fifteen minutes before Winry did. We were both assembled at the dining table, me at the head of it, Alphonse at the tail of it, Pinako in the middle of us sorting cables and wires and potpourri parts of automail that I didn't really care about. I was finishing up arithmetic that I had ignored earlier today. Alphonse had his textbook open and was scribbling down answers to the Review-and-Assess Questions from Fifth A history. I remembered those dumb things. They got tedious.

The front door swung open and a stronger-than-usual zephyr squealed in towards the table, scattering papers and screws like a hungry, malicious force. Three pairs of eyes shifted dully, but angrily, up towards the threshold where Winry stood, hugging her satchel, her skirt fluttering around her legs wildly and her hair dancing at her shoulders. The gust died down and she moved out of the way, slamming the heavy door and pouting over her shoulder at the table.

"Well, don't you guys get too welcoming. Hi, and how are you guys? I'm fine. A little cold."

"It's gonna storm," Alphonse said in a voice that lacked any emotion whatsoever. He didn't look up from the text as he readjusted his composition book. I scowled deeply across the table at him.

"What the hell is _your _problem, Al?"

"Nothing, Brother."

"My ass!"

"Don't yell at me right now. I don't wanna get angry."

"Oh, sorry, _you _don't want to get angry?"

"Stop it." Alphonse sighed, looking up at me with stony caramel eyes that read just how able he was when it came to flaring tempers. My heart gave a large thump and I withdrew with gritted teeth, feeling my own gaze read just as much of a warning at his obvious clout to my own resignation. He was much better at holding in fury; everyone knew that.

"What did you do to him?" Winry squealed, giving me a comical wallop to the back of my head. I flew forward and my bruised stomach hit the edge of the table. I howled, tiny beadlets of spittle flying from my lips and hitting my paper. Granny sighed in exasperation, curling her pudgy hands in a wall around some miscellaneous automail parts and moving them closer to her work area.

"I didn't do _anything_!" I wailed, my voice squeaking and cracking the entire way through. Alphonse picked up his pencil, scooted out of his chair, tucked his paper into the text book, cradled the text book in his arm, and moved through the door into the kitchen, shutting it behind him.

The three of us stranded in the living room/dining area were quiet.

Granny looked at Winry, then focused her knowing gaze on me, strangely parental and regarding me with a punishers' eye.

"You dumb little jerk," she said levelly, her voice the same scratchy and strained yipping as it always was. "I have never once seen that boy so hurt and so mad and all the signs point directly at you. One day you're going to wish you were nicer to him."

Winry and I were absolutely silent. My chest was feeling heavier and heavier, pulling me back against the chair. I felt the rage dissolve into fear and guilt, spreading across my face as easily as jam onto toast. I stared at Granny with a blank kind of sharpness in my eyes, hoping that the Chewing Ed Out session wouldn't progress to any more levels.

It didn't.

She gathered everything carefully into the crate in front of her and waddled up the stairs.

Winry looked at me with eyes that read confusion and disbelief. She put a hand on my shoulder and with the other started to stroke hair out of my face.

"What…what's wrong with you guys lately?" she asked me after a moment. Her voice was soft, calm, clear.

I turned my face up to her, hoping to whatever was out there that claimed to be god that they didn't show her how upset I was in turn. "Studies."

She froze. Her brows furrowed and she backed a few steps away, her satchel bag swinging near her thighs and bunching her skirt up a few inches. My eyes fell to that, then rotated back up to meet hers. She was frowning a genuine frown.

"Ed…" she said gently. Winry shook her head slowly, keeping her eyes on me, then looked down to her feet, bringing her fingers around to play with the hem of her shirt. Her tongue darted out and ran along her lips nervously. Afterwards she looked back at me and tried to smile.

"Ed, will you let me cheer you up?"

"What are you talking about?"  
But I knew. I knew what she meant.

I tried to push everything back into that box reserved for it, tried to slam the lid on and latch it tight. I wasn't going to let things that I had done or said, impulsively and stupidly, ruin what time I had with the girl that I loved – especially time that was fucking _special_.

"Lately…you haven't seemed as happy."

I tensed up, the smile that had formed on my face fading quickly. "What…?"

"I want to make you as carefree as you were." She took my hand and ran her thumb along each of my knuckles. She wasn't smiling anymore either. "I want you to relax. I want you to be _happy_."

"I am happy!" I snapped, jerking my hand away from hers. My spine was rigid again. She looked hurt, defeated. I knew what she meant, though. Again. I knew that I hadn't been as…happy, I guess, as I used to. Alphonse hadn't either. _Studies_. And the other thing was – no matter how much I tried to avoid it, there was always that looming feeling, the feeling that something was going to happen that would shatter everything I had and everything I loved.

"Listen," I said in a low, raspy mumble. I sat up straighter and reached out, wrapping my arms around her waist and pushing my chin into her stomach, looking up at her with what I hoped was a reassuring gaze. "I think it's just the storm that's coming in. Have you ever noticed that when the weather sours up, so do the people? Moods get dark just like the sky."

Winry giggled and rolled her eyes. "You're a dork."

I grinned.

As I grinned up at her I started to feel the suffocating guilt again. I had to tell her what I did. But not now; I wasn't going to ruin our moment. But at one point, I had to tell her…how horrible I am. How horrible I'd _become_.

She wound her arms around my neck and let them drape on my shoulders. She leaned down and kissed my forehead. Then she said, slowly, completely unlike herself but so like herself that was enthralling, "Come with me up to my room. I wanna show you something from the library."

My heart faltered and then sped up excitedly.


	15. Kiss Me, I'm Contagious

**Disclaimers: I don't own FMA.**

**BUT I WOULD OWN A POCKET WATCH IF SOMEONE HADN'T TAKEN IT APART YET!!!**

**GOD.**

**Fucking TECHNOLOGICAL GEEKS.**

**A/N: Winry's POV. (Any typos, please excuse. x3 What's with the song titles! Oh no! Title © From First to Last. I couldn't resist? And thank you to for the little snippet from the _Adolescents and Sex_ chapter. :D)**

-

_Kiss Me, I'm Contagious_

-

I ducked my head and shrugged off my satchel backpack. I had attached a picture of us to the front near the clasp with a safety-pin. Edward had made fun of it but when we were alone he'd said it was cool. As I closed the door behind me, I bit my lip and looked at my bag.

He sat down on the bed and slumped forward, watching me with a petulant frown, his default expression and mood. "What did you wanna show me? From the library, right?"

"Yeah!" I said, brightening up and dropping to a crouch in front of my bag. My fingers were shaking and I prayed to god that he didn't see it; I unclasped my bag and threw the flap up, pulling on the snaps and opening up the center of my bag. I reached in and glanced up at him, pausing and smiling and giggling.

"What?" I said, grinning at him. He blinked a few times, his scowl disappearing and his face looking untroubled for the first time in a long time.

"Nothing," he grunted. "Go on, slow-poke."

"Shut up!" I squealed, yanking the smaller of the books out. His eyes followed it intently. I pushed it behind me so that he couldn't see it. "Hold on, hold on. You'll see in a minute."

I pulled out the second book and then gathered them both, front cover away from him, against my chest. Standing up slowly, I looked at him through my eyelashes. The pit of my stomach coiled up nervously and I felt my heart starting to race again. He stared at me, blankly, calmly, frigging _stupidly_. I huffed a sigh and stepped over in front of him, looking directly into his eyes. It made my knees weak and I wanted to sit down before I _fell_ down, but I fought it. I hugged the books tight to my breasts and made my face look more serious than it was nervous.

"I'm going to make you happy," I said, keeping my voice level and determined so he would know I was formal. "And I'm not completely sure how I'm supposed to do it, so I'm going to need your help. But I'm not going to be afraid and I don't want you to be either."

His brows furrowed and he looked a little worried up at me, as if he really could not figure out what I meant. I smiled faintly; my own brow knitted downwards, and I set the books, face down, onto the bedding beside him. I leaned down and put my hands on his thighs to steady myself, craning my neck so that I was barely an inch or two away from him. He stared at me, for once _quiet_.

"Will you help me?" I murmured, peering out at him as some hair fell over my shoulder, my fingers tightening on his denim-clad legs. I hoped he could see in my face how pleading I was getting, how much I wanted to, how much I loved him – because at the moment the words were bubbling out of my heart but dying in my throat.

I almost screamed when he startled me and ran his hand up my arm. He gawked at me, his lips kind of open, his eyes slit in the same cat-eyed expression he wore so often, but his irises burned with the words that I couldn't get out of my mouth. I relaxed, sighing through my nose. He snaked his other arm around my waist and pulled me closer. I let him tug me onto his lap and I straddled my knees on his hips. He was sliding off the bed a little because (unfortunately for him _and _for me sometimes) he was just a little bit smaller than me.

"Edward," I whispered, pressing my cheek against his, looking towards the books. "I wanna show you what I got from the library, okay?"

"I'm sorry," he mumbled into my neck as I reached for them. For a moment I froze, my heart pausing for probably three seconds before starting again, and then I smiled, looked at him, and ran my finger along the curves of his open mouth. The feel of his mass against me, warm and firm, his arms tight and secure around my sides – I pulled the book between our stomachs and he tugged me forward as he tilted back to lay on the bed.

Edward took one arm off of me and grabbed the book like it were a piece of clothing, discarding it near my pillow and then taking my face in his palm. A tiny whimper came out of my lips and I looked at him, a little nervous, but he just smiled, pulling my face down and closing his mouth on mine. We kissed for a few moments, softly, hungrily, tongues brushing now and again, before I pulled away and climbed off of him. He folded his arms under his head casually and looked after me, sadly, like he was really upset that I had left his mouth.

"Hold on." I giggled at the mock gloom on his face.

"Whatever," he mumbled, kicking his legs a few times and making the mattress of my bed bounce. I sat down beside his bent knees and picked up the book he'd thrown, flipping it to a certain page. Then, not daring to look at him for fear of freezing up and just _doing_ something, I started to read aloud.

" 'Physical maturation resulting from puberty leads to an interest in sexual activities. Both boys and girls are now "entering puberty at least two years earlier than previous generations. This means they are ready for sex earlier physically, but not emotionally or cognitively." All "teens have sexual lives, whether with others or through fantasies." Sexuality "is a vital aspect of teens' lives. The question is whether they are going to have healthy experiences, at any or every level of sexual activity." Increasingly, teenage sexual encounters do not occur in the context of a romantic relationship, but in an impersonal, merely sexual "hook up".' "

I glanced over my shoulder, knowing for sure that my expression was troubled. "That's…from the chapter called 'Adolescents and Sex'. Ed…we…" I felt myself wanting to cry but I tried not to. I started to tremble as he sat up, looking at me, concerned.

"What?" he asked, his voice low, worried. "What, Winry? What?"

I snapped the book shut, swallowing adamantly. "We're not just a…a _hook-up_, right?" The world started to get blurry and I hunched forward, squeezing my eyes shut and trying hard to stop the tears from coming. I didn't want to cry – I really didn't. But it wasn't something that I could control anymore. And the more that I thought about what I'd just read, the more I…started to get nervous.

"How can you ask that?" he cried, his voice rising. I flinched and even let out a pathetic whimper.

"_How_?" he demanded. I snuck a glance at him and he was staring at me, startled and afraid and fretful. "Do you not think…that we're meant to be? Do you not trust that I love you?"

"No!" I shrieked, throwing the book to the side and hunching away from him, holding my head and sniffling, wiping at my eyes frantically. The urge to cry had already disappeared. It was like some bratty little sibling, one that runs in, makes a mess, then leaves while cackling at your frustration. "_No_," I repeated, turning and staring right into his eyes, no matter how hard it was.

He recoiled, and I saw him swallow. Edward drew his legs up into criss-cross style, slumping forward with his hands in his lap. He frowned deeply.

"That's not true," he mumbled. "That crap isn't true."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I know that, I…I just got scared all of a sudden, I – "

"Get the book."

I tensed up, blinking, peering at him with wide eyes. "Hunh?" I sniffled again.

"Get the book. We're gonna figure out what we're supposed to do and I swear to fucking god I'm gonna make it the best ever. I'm gonna make you like it. I'm gonna make you like it a _lot_. I'm gonna _show_ you how much I love you."

A shiver made its way down my spine. I was frozen in spot. My legs and my arms were shaking. I gawked at him, mouth shut, eyes wide, wide, wide, feeling my face heat up and my stomach knotting worse and my heart pounding volubly.

_ThumpTHUMP. ThumpTHUMP. ThumpTHUMP._

"Get the book," he said again, levelly, staring at me with eyes that were burning.

I leaned over and took the book off my blankets again, handing it to him quietly. I couldn't swallow. I was feeling…weird between my legs again. Tighter. Excited. Oh. Yeah. I was frigging _excited_. I wanted to laugh and scream and cry at the same time while I felt him on top of me, doing everything to me, feeling his mouth and tongue and teeth and fingers and chest and breath.

He flipped it back open to the chapter about adolescents and then looked at me with a mischievous spark spreading across his eyes. I knew he was serious. I could feel it as well as see it.

"Listen to me, Winry."  
"I'm listening."

He moved closer to me so we could read at the same time.

"I love you."  
"I love you too."

Edward opened up to a page with diagrams and explanations, the second page of the chapter.

"We're going to do this, now."

"Now."

He ran his finger down the paragraphs until it talked about intercourse between juveniles.  
"No hesitations."

"None."

He turned his gaze up to meet mine, solemn and steady and burning with passion.

"No fear."

"No fear."

He kissed me, hard and soft at the same time.

"Now, and it's gonna be awesome."

"Very awesome."

He twisted around and slid a hand down my thigh. "I love you," he whispered against my cheek, keeping his eyes on mine.

"Read the book," I told him.


	16. Weak Points and Strong Points

**Disclaimers: I don't own FMA.**

**A/N: Alphonse's POV. (Any typos, please excuse.)**

-

_Weak Points and Strong Points_

-

I let the thin pencil slip from my fingers when I was done with the last Review-and-Assess question. It rolled off the edge of the table and I sighed irritably, my brows furrowing down as I twisted to the side, picking it up and fingering the dull point of it. Some graphite rubbed off into smudges on the pads of my fingertips. I relaxed a little, most of my annoyance sliding away with the rest of my exhalation.

I closed my text book and slouched forward, burying my face into my folded arms. I didn't want to be angry, but I was. There was something alive inside me, something burning and screaming and yanking at my insides. I think someone like my brother would call it _fury_. But I had no idea why I was irate, and that was what scared me.

Sure, my brother could be a bully sometimes. Okay, most of the time. But he meant well. And when he, himself, was angry, he never meant to make it seem directed at people it wasn't meant to be.

Getting ready for bed a few nights before, I had found a book that seemed to call me. It was in Edward's pile of research, but I ignored that. I opened it up and found documents that appalled me: I was disgusted that I had snooped into what he, obviously, found too advanced for me, and I was enraged that he should judge me like that.

If he could read it, I could read it, I decided.

So I did.

And my guilt and my fear and my anger all mixed together; I wasn't sure if what I had done was wrong or not, but I knew one thing for sure.

What we were both about to do was _ultimately more wrong than we had figured_.

And I had wondered, _how long had Brother known about this and not shared with me?_ How long had he known the risks, the stakes, the secrets, everything about our decision, without letting me in on the knowledge?

I sighed again, heavily, squeezing my eyes shut and shaking my head on my arms gently. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know if now was the moment where I, the younger brother, made the right decision and stopped the blindly determined older brother from making a life-endangering choice.

I knew that it was but I tried not to think about it.

I loved my brother and idolized him too much.

It would be like mutiny to strike him down.

"Hey, boy."

I jumped, sitting up rigid, eyes wide and heart pounding. "Hnm?" I squeaked, looking to the side. Granny was standing there, blinking at me, her arms clasped behind her back.

"Al, let's get dinner started."

"Y…yeah, okay, Granny." I smiled at her and pushed myself out of the chair. Standing up, I rubbed at the sides of my face, still watching her. She was still watching me.

"I'm sorry that idiot brother of yours is being moody."

"It's okay, Granny, I'm used to it."

"Doesn't he get on your nerves?" she squawked, moving over towards the stove.

I frowned from behind her, keeping it away from my voice so she would not notice. "Not really, Granny." In my mind, I added:

_Because he's my brother_.


	17. Physical Attraction

**Disclaimers: I don't own FMA.**

**A/N: Edward's POV. (Any typos, please excuse.)**

-

_Physical Attraction_

-

She was still wearing her black slip-on shoes, without socks. She hadn't taken them off yet. We had gone directly to her room.

My eyes slid up her opalescent, long legs, past her bent knees and to her lap. Her skirt, when she sat down, barely reached her mid-thighs. The book rested half in her lap and half in mine. She was reading aloud, her finger following every word as she spoke it naturally and calmly – strongly contradicting what I could see on her face and in her eyes.

She was nervous but she was willing. And she wanted to.

My gaze hopped over her lap and on to her waist. She was wearing a skirt, I knew that much – and when she had been walking around I had seen what all was on it. It was a plaid cotton skirt with denim pockets on the back, snapping in front with a black clasp. When she was standing up it moved along with her legs and the curves of her body easily and cooperatively, and her plain white T-shirt hugged tightly all the way down to her hips. Her hair was out of its normal ponytail, pigtail, or half-back; it hung loosely and smoothly to her shoulder blades, a black barrette holding some hair out of the corners of her eyes. Her bangs were curly wisps that dusted her black lashes and hid her anxious, fiery eyes from me as she read.

What Winry was reading, I don't know. It was going in one ear and out the other.

Because I had never really _looked_ at her body like this before.

She was so _pretty_. And, I guess, whenever someone joked around and said _Oh man she is sexy!_, that was what she was.

She was _hot_.

Her face was still innocent and childish, her cheeks round and smooth, her lips cupid-bow perfect and pink, and her eyes wide. The expression on her face was always begging me for something, always bubbly, but hiding the pleading that went on when she tugged on my hand. Pleading for more.

At some points she was so young and playful, and then when we were alone, she was so…I don't know. Older. _Hotter_. She was so concentrated in reading the book to me, all about How You Have Sex When You're Not Supposed To (I had already laughed at it and she told me to be serious and I told her I was), she didn't notice my eyes moving all over her body.

Or maybe she did, but didn't let me know she knew.

Her legs were longer than I'd remembered, thinner, smoother-looking. Her fingers were tiny and her hands delicate, and her arms were slender and she hugged me so much tighter than before. I tried to keep myself from looking there, but I couldn't help it.

HER BOOBS GOT BIGGER TOO

They were rounder and bigger and sometimes they bounced when she walked or ran. And I couldn't help but look there; I swear I couldn't. And sometimes I would look down near her crotch too, and wonder what it would feel like if she were rubbing on me.

And then I'd get kind of happy down there and I'd be embarrassed and pissed off at myself.

"Hey, are you even listening to me?" she squealed, jerking me out of my (not really) stealthy trance. I blinked a few times, snapping my gaze up to meet her fierce one, breaking into a sheepish grin.

"Yuh, I'm listening, no worries, Winry."

"No you're not! What did I just say?"

"You just accused me of not listening."

Winry huffed an angry breath and looked back to the book. "Do you want to do this or not, Ed?"

"Um. Yeah. _I do_."

"Then listen to me!" She snuck a glance towards me, pouting severely. Her eyes were begging me again.

So I gave in.

"Okay. Okay, okay," I mumbled, moving closer, winding my arm around her waist. I shifted my legs to make a better table for the book. She pointed to a paragraph and said,

"Read that."

I did.

_The causes of human sexual arousal are sundry and, by nature, subjective, always arising from natural urges but otherwise spanning the scope of human or cultural desires from love and mere attraction to the obscure._ _Certain aspects of what is sexually attractive to humans may differ amongst particular cultures or regions. Influencing factors may be determined more locally among sub-cultures or simply by the preferences of the individual. These preferences come about as a result of a variety of genetic, psychological, and cultural factors. The sexual attraction of one person to another depends on both people. Sexual attraction generally starts at the age of 9, sexual orientation on the other hand does not start until sexual glands mature._ _Much of human sexual attractiveness is governed by physical attractiveness. This involves the impact one's appearance has on the senses, especially in the beginning of a relationship:_

_Visual Perception (how the other looks); _

_Olfaction (how the other smells, naturally or artificially; the wrong smell may be repulsive); _

_Audition (how the other's voice and/or movements sound). _

I slowly lifted my gaze and stared directly at her. She was looking back at me curiously, her face a little flushed. I wanted to ask her, _CAN YOU FUCKING READ MY MIND? _But I didn't.

She giggled manically and my heart skipped a beat. I had a feeling she was about to ask a very personal question, just to make me get embarrassed. Or for her to find something out about me.

And I thought I had an idea just what she was going to ask.

"What that said a page back, about…_getting hard_, Ed? Do you get hard?" She grinned at me, a grin that made me think of a sadistic torture mistress from some macabre story I'd found in the library.

I snapped the book shut and stared at her with a sharp scowl and narrowed eyes.

"What kind of question is that?" I barked, and my voice squeaked more than once. My face was heating up. I didn't like it.

"I just wanna know!" Winry cried, letting out a bubbly but EVIL cackle, throwing her arms around my neck and leaning on me, pressing her nose into my cheek. I shook my head rapidly, trying to free myself from her grip. She knocked me over sideways and we almost fell off the bed as I howled and she giggled.

The jollity ended, though, when she nosed into my ear and said softly, "Edward…I like that."

I froze.

My glower disappeared.

I knew that I must have looked utterly startled, completely nervous, and a little pleased, but I couldn't change any of that.

She looked over at me through her lashes, her lips parted and still brushing my ear. I shivered. I frowned and flicked my eyes elsewhere. I wrapped my arms around her waist and scooted to the side, pulling us away from the edge of the mattress. The blankets were twisted beneath us. The book had fallen to the floor.

"What do you mean, you like that?" I mumbled, my voice not as demanding as I'd wanted it to be. Winry pressed herself against me hard, her breasts smashed against my chest. I slowly slid my eyes to the side to peer at her from the corner of my vision.

"That…makes me happy." She looked at me with a seriousness that was so alluring at the same time it made me crazy. My stomach jerked and my heart hopped into my throat. At some point I'd shove her off me because I wasn't going to let her _feel_ me get hard.

Not yet, at least.

"Happy?" I grunted instead, squeaking again.

"Yeah. If…" She bit her lip and traced a hand up the side of my face, then moved it to my lips, smoothing her fingertip along my lower one gently. Her voice fell to a whisper and I forgot to move her off me. I could feel myself stiffening but I was frozen in place, gaping into her eyes, charmed by what I saw and felt and I was _stuck_, unable to say anything, unable to move, only able to stare at her and love her more and more in every way as the seconds passed.

"If," she said again, low, "you get turned on by me…like that, then that makes me really happy. Because I know that you really, really love me, in both ways. I know that you love me sexually, and you love me…well, whatever other ways there are!" She paused and moved her finger, landing a sweet kiss on my open mouth.

"And," she added, squirming around on top of me. Her skirt slid up slightly and I could feel the warmth of her crotch on mine. My cheeks glowed hotter.

She could feel me.

Yup.

Definitely.

And she knew that I knew she could feel it.

Great.

"And," she said again, smiling slyly from just inches away from my face, "I'm glad that I make you hard like that. I wanna make you happy. I wanna make you _happier_ than just hard. I wanna be your first."

I pushed my face up roughly and pressed my lips to hers. I felt and heard her gasp, and then I jerked my body upwards and she rolled off me; I rolled over on top of her in the same movement, without taking my mouth off hers. Her fingers curled on the back of my T-shirt and she started to kiss me faster, hungrier.

I don't know how the knowledge came to me, but it did.

Maybe it's something that's just built into guys.

I don't know.

But at that moment, I knew _exactly_ what I was supposed to do.

What I _wanted_ to do.


	18. Experimentation

**Disclaimers: Don't own FMA.**

**A/N: Winry's POV. (Sorry for the delay. Any typos, please excuse. Also: at the end of this, there is a cut-off. It's supposed to carry over to the next chapter, with her POV kind of trailing off with Edward's identically. Got it? Okay, hope so.)**

-

_Experimentation_

-

See, I'm not stupid. I read the books on the way home, careful not to let the darkening sky and the increase in wind to let the pages blow, or to let anyone see what was on the pages in my hands. It made me more excited, reading about it, knowing what to do, wondering if he did too. It turned me on more, thinking of him doing those things to me. When I read it to him on the bed, I felt a little accomplished that I had already read all of it.

But something inside me – my pride, probably – quivered angrily when he rolled on top of me and I deepened our kissing. I ran my hands up and down his back, then curled my fingers tightly on the light gray cotton near his shoulder blades. My heart was racing, with anxiety and desire and embarrassment, and I arched my back, wanting to know what it would feel like if he was pressed further against my body.

I felt my face heat up worse, heard myself squeak into his mouth as his hands ran up and down my sides, then found their way to my neck and hair, his fingers smoothing and swirling on my scalp and sending shivers down my spine excitedly. I couldn't tell whose heart was pounding, or if it was both of ours in turn; my torso was almost vibrating with the force of them.

When I arched my back again, his crotch pressed hard into mine and I felt him bulging between my legs through his jeans. After a few seconds of startled staring, my lips open on his, panting already, brows furrowed in a sensation I couldn't decide, apprehension or utter pleasure, I realized that my skirt had been pushed up and that I could feel his hard-on so clearly because it was directly on my panties. Thank you thin cotton and elastic waist.

I arched my back further. My stomach fluttered as his cock, separated from my crotch only with cotton and denim, prodded deeper at me. I guess he realized that I couldn't kiss him because I was breathing too hard, so he jerked off my mouth and started to go to work on my neck, making my entire body shudder. Something else fluttered – something between my legs, somewhere near where I felt funny all the time. I tilted my head back and to the side, his lips moving wet and warm and fast up all over my skin and behind my ear, his breath steady and hot. My eyes slowly started to close and I bit into my lip to stifle a delighted cry.

My hands clenched and unclenched on his back, fingers tightening and loosening like a cat's paws. I was already squirming and for a moment I thought, _This is about to feel so much better, I need to slow down and stop getting ahead of myself_, but it was tiny and almost inaudible in the back of my mind. When my voice cracked in my sharp inhalation, Edward lifted his head and stared at me with lowered lashes, his eyes on fire and his lips parted, his chest barely starting to heave against mine. His hands moved away from my face as I slowly turned my gaze up to lock on his and we just gawked at each other for a moment as his fingers made their way down, down my chest (stomach flutter), down my stomach (heart flutter), and onto my bare thighs (crotch flutter).

His fingers curled smoothly onto my thighs and he pushed them a little, frowning at me with an almost worried expression. For a split second I felt like the inferior little girl, ignorant and inexperienced, and he the teacher, superior and completely knowledgeable, and then it was gone as my own version of Elric virtues, pride and anger and stubbornness, took over and smashed the thought. I bucked my hips into his hands and his firm gaze faltered with momentary disquiet. I smiled up at him as best as I could, saying silently _That's what you get you bastard, you're not the only one who knows what to do, so just _do it_. Go on. _My smile disappeared quickly, though, as his mouth attached onto mine again, and he whispered softly against my lips, "So…let's go."

He sounded so _chaste_ and _hot_ at the same time it made me smile again, this time with a lustful challenge in it. Edward peered down at a moment, silent, looking confused and kind of cute, and then he started to kiss me again, ravenously. His hands traveled up to my crotch and then I decided to be just as governing; I don't know what happened to my embarrassment and shy yearning, but it changed abruptly into pure crave, cold and sweet.

He was wearing a gray T-shirt with turquoise, short sleeves, and faded blue-gray denim jeans with holes in the knees. His hair was messy as always because he never brushed it either way, it was "just fine", in his words – "just fine" being short, blonde, and shaggy – and the strands were mixing with mine to make two heads and one amount of golden hair. My hands reached his belt-loops and I stared straight at him, his eyes finding a way to seem to recoil from mine, but then bore into them with such ferocity that it made me want to tremble (I tensed my muscles to keep from doing just that), without his body even moving an inch other than his heavy breath. His brows furrowed gently. My fingertips dusted up into his shirt and across his stomach, and when he sucked in sharply I remembered his bruise.

And at the same moment I noticed his lip and cheek and realized I had completely forgotten about his black and blue reminiscent. I grinned sheepishly and kissed him quickly, soundlessly. "Don't you hurt?" I whispered on his mouth and he shook his head, never once taking his eyes from mine.

"No. I'm fine."

"Okay," I breathed slowly, closing my eyes and rolling my head to the side, my back arching again as my hands found the button and fly of his jeans. I felt him tense, felt his gasp, and when I looked back at him with my hands in his pants and curling around the lump in his boxers, he was staring at me with such a flustered expression that I had to grin again.

"You're so cute," I murmured.

Edward grunted abruptly, raspily, and then narrowed his eyes; he still looked awkward though, and for a few moments I felt more in love than horny.

"No I'm not," he barked. I pressed a finger to his lips to shush him.

Then I slid my fingers into the fly of his boxers and let my nails graze the hot skin and stiffness that they found. He drew in a sharp breath through his nose and pressed his face into my neck, kissing it hungrily again, his own hands prying into the waist of my panties. I pressed my lips together tightly, closing my eyes and turning my head against his, smashing my face against his cheek. That area in my crotch kept fluttering, faster and tighter now; with my fingertips smoothing up and down his cock and his own hands crawling more and more into my own privacy, I wanted to scream already.

Somehow we both shared a reciprocal thought without even knowing it. At the same moment I pulled his cock out of the fly of his boxers, he yanked my panties down. Surprised, we both stared at each other with wide eyes, and I felt my face burning a bright cherry red. His lips quirked up a little in a tiny smile and that word passed through my mind again. With brothers. And sisters. And the whole damn family reunion.

_CUTECUTECUTECUTECUTEILOVEHIMCUTECUTECUTEOHGODJUSTFUCKMEEDCUTEHOTCUTESEXYGODMAKETHISGOOD_

I buried my face into his neck and started to take shallow breaths. He pressed his lips to my forehead and smoothed his fingers along the bareness of my vagina. I knew what was coming. And somehow he knew what was coming too. We both knew. We both wanted to. We were both wondering what was supposed to happen first. I knew with a slight smile that he was freaking out over what exactly he was supposed to do before doing it initially to make it really good, so I turned my head up, sighing gently into his ear.

"Just do it," I told him. It felt like he jumped. Then he nodded and kissed me sloppily, excitedly, hungrily, and softly, his finger sliding into the slit of my pussy. The air that was escaping in between his crotch and mine made me shiver and I clutched onto him, starting to breathe even harsher, losing my own authority and letting him take over. My timidity was back with a flourish, but the untainted feeling of _hunger_ was still there, wrestling for power with my coyness.

He leaned in to my ear and his breath made me feel _really_ weird down there, with the tip of his dick brushing against my skin and his fingers slinking around in the areas where only _I_ was allowed just hours before. His digits slid deeper down into my crotch and when he found my entrance, I gasped.

"I'm sorry," he whispered gently in my ear. "I'm sorry, it might hurt."

"I know," I said back, and it sounded snappy and I immediately regretted it, so I said it again, softer, against his cheek; "I know, Ed. Don't worry."

Edward looked at me a minute, then hid his face in the nape of my neck. I positioned my eyes on the ceiling, more nervous than ever now, so nervous I suddenly felt nauseous, when I felt him slide into me, making me feel almost _swollen_; making me feel a slight twinge of pain, before it dissipated and I wanted to scream, already, again. I bit the inside of my lip and turned my head to the side, smashing my face on his again, concentrating on the feel of his kisses on my neck, hasty and anxious and apologetic, his breath choppy. Our hearts were pounding in tune again. He pushed so far into me that I didn't know it was possible; the fucking _book_ hadn't said anything about the pleasure, just the goddamn risks.

A muscle quivered somewhere and I tried to stifle my groan into his shoulder. He grunted, startled, his voice squeaking horribly. I couldn't control myself anymore. I couldn't. It felt too good, too fresh, too right, too _awesome_.

My hips rolled upwards and the swollen feeling deepened. He was so hot and soft, and I could feel his balls brushing against my skin, warm and just as petal-soft. Not like…I don't know, _squishy _soft, god, he was _hard_ – I mean, velvet, silky soft.

And holy _fuck_ did it feel good.

I started to whimper louder, faster, more breathlessly. He was doing the same, probably more out of fear of hurting me or not pleasuring me, or something stupid like he always worried about; but the sounds he was starting to make in my neck and the way he was breathing and moving his hips down and up and down and up and down and up with mine…my stomach pinched and suddenly I was feeling _really _good down there.

His mouth opened and I felt the warm wetness of his tongue and the insides of his lips, moving up and down my neck slowly. My body started to move on it's own, my hips rolling up harder and harder, each time gaining a quiet moan out of Edward, making what the book had classified my entrance as – _vaginal opening_ – squeeze tighter and tighter, making the distended feeling worse and worse. And the worse it made the feeling, the _better_ I felt.

The book had said something about the _clitoris_ or something like that; it had defined it as a "pea-sized lump near the upper part of the vagina", and had said that when you touched it and played with it, or as sex progressed, it would start to get larger and harder – a "woman's erection".

And as Ed kept going deeper and I kept bucking up harder, both of us starting to shake and pant and moan constantly, I could almost _feel_ myself getting hard. I could feel him stiffening even more inside of me, felt the skin and the bedding beneath our crotches getting wetter.

I tried so hard to go over what the book said, trying to figure out when I knew it would end, because I didn't want it to, god, no, but I kept being pulled back by the insane bliss and the sounds and movements that Ed was making; I hugged him tight against me, and he dipped down harder onto me, my hipbones aching from bumping his but my inner walls tightening further and further and further, squeezing harder and making shivering echoes ripple all the way up to my stomach and sending chills down my arms, my _clitoris­_-thing getting harder and throbbing a little. My groaning and whimpering and crying were getting shriller, more breathless.

Abruptly, inside me, I felt like he was getting bigger. I felt weird, disembodied; I felt as if I'd _forgotten_ he was lying on top of me, our bodies jerking, his breath sending chills up and down my spine; I gritted my teeth when I wanted to shriek, my fingers curling again, clutching onto him desperately. He moaned gutturally, without squeaking once, deep into my neck, his teeth catching on the collar of my shirt. My head fell backwards on the bedding and my back arched up further, my legs automatically spreading more. When he rolled downwards again, I felt his cock slip roughly up further, and then

_he hit this one spot_.

The head of his cock was digging into it; it was like he was touching the end of my backbone, because every time he hit it, faster now, so much goddamn _faster_, my spine tingled with shudders. I wanted to scream even more now, wanted to just feel like this for a little bit longer, felt my _clitoris_-thing throb more, felt it flutter just like my _vaginal opening_ was on Edward's dick, my hands clawing up and down his back and arms; I barely noticed…


	19. Passion

**Disclaimers: Don't own FMA.**

**A/N: Edward's POV. (Any typos, please excuse. I seem to be getting more and more sloppy and careless as I go along. Dx As I said last chapter, the thought continues here. Sorry for any confusion. ee)**

-

_Passion_

-

…how crazy she seemed, too. I immediately felt guilty for not paying enough attention to her, her skin sweet and warm in my lips and so _hot_ against my balls; my hands clawed at her thighs, spreading them more, my hips jerking down and shoving upwards, my cock sliding in deeper. She was getting so tight, and she was so wet and warm and secure…a pang of some emotion I was too distracted to identify shot through my body and I groaned into her neck, my body rolling smoother, faster, deeper.

Winry moaned shrilly and I felt my dick stiffen to the point of pulsating. My throat clenched in a way that was like a warning before the crying as images and sensations pricked me again from the night when I had tricked my brother into some ridiculous thing, and I wondered frantically how it had escaped the box in the back of my mind.

My thoughts were snapped off as she grabbed one of my wrists, groaning out her words and looking over to me desperately. "Ed…Edward, Edward, please…" she whispered, her voice strained and breathy. "Touch me, too, please…you'll know where."

I swallowed. I wanted to just come already, to just feel that good, to make her feel that good too, so I did. I didn't know how it would make her feel better, but I obeyed her chaste commands anyway. I put my hand into her wet crotch, feeling myself get even harder and wondering how the fuck that was possible. My thoughts weren't even coherent anymore, just jumbled thoughts and emotions and lusty moans. I found a tiny bump that, when I brushed it with my fingertip, Winry cried out almost happily. She hooked her arms around my neck and pulled me down on top of her, my face nearly suffocated in her neck; her head was thrown back and she was breathing so harshly that it scared me. I could feel currents of ecstasy pulsing up from my cock and all throughout my body and limbs and everything. My stomach flopped. My heart thudded. My head spun. My breath hitched. My frame trembled. She bucked her hips up _hard_ and I almost screeched.

"Do it again, do it again," she gasped against my cheek. Her chest rose up and down sharply against mine. "Keep doing that, oh, please, Edward…"

My mouth fell open and I didn't know what to say to her request anymore. I just panted. I kept touching her there, and every time I did, her body jerked upwards roughly and she squealed. Her arms tightened and so did her pussy and with each throbbing squeeze I got dizzier and dizzier and my thoughts and my sense of reality got foggier and foggier, and all I could think was _god, I love her so much, god, this feels so good, god, I hope she really does like this, god, why didn't we do this sooner_.

Okay.

Let me say something really quick.

TWO ORGASMS ARE LIKE A CHAIN REACTION.

It was like, subconsciously, I knew it was her orgasm that came first. Her pussy tightened repeatedly, squeezer tighter than she had throughout the whole thing, almost _hurting_ my cock, sending shivers up and down my spine; her body bucked upwards completely on mine and I groaned as I felt my own: she was huffing and moaning into my shoulder, trying to keep them down, I could tell, her head rolling from side to side loosely, when I felt the climax come like it did before and I felt all the muscles quivering like taut strings and I felt myself send out that weird gooey stuff that the book Winry'd got had determined as the come, the _semen_, the _sperm_ – I drew in a squeaking breath and pressed my face into her neck, gasping and shuddering on top of her as she did the same thing.

It lasted _for-fucking-ever_.

But when it ended it felt like it had only been three seconds.

I was lying limp on her, shaking, throbbing, sweaty, and out of breath, dizzy and completely weak, my head beside hers and my face against the side of hers, my eyes halfway open, my limbs dead and sprawled slightly, panting heavily. She was lying on her back, her arms loosening slowly and then simply draping over my shoulders, her own chest rising and lowering with desperate attempts for breath, her eyes shut tight and her brows furrowed and her skin damp with her own sweat. She dipped her hips backwards and I felt myself sliding out of her, felt the air hit me with a shocking gust of chilliness. I grunted and buried my face down deep into her neck, deeper and deeper.

Her fingers were squirming around on the back of my neck, making me shudder again, pawing at my skin like a sleepy cat. After a long stretch of minutes, a comforting and warm silence, I lifted my head and looked at her, the world spinning for a few seconds.

She pried her eyes open, just a little, looking out at me silently through her dark lashes.

"I…um…" I fidgeted, tucking my cock back into my boxers. Then I did the nice thing to do and tried to pull her panties back up. She helped me.

"What?" she whispered, hugging me back against her and smiling faintly. She looked so radiant and angelic and so…happy. Winry smiled a little more as I just stared at her, obviously amused at my calmness, and then she shook her head and closed her eyes and hid in my neck. I rolled onto my side and hugged her close to me, looking up at the ceiling with a sudden sentiment clamping onto me fervently.

I moved my eyes back down to her face, nestled up close to me, calm and placid and tangibly warm. My brows furrowed as that weird sensation bubbled up into my chest, making me feel almost dismal. I opened my mouth to tell her what I was feeling, but then I stumbled on my words and simply mumbled, rushed, "I love you so much."

She looked up at me slowly, looking almost groggy, and then smiled more, whispering, "I love you, too, Ed. So much."

I didn't know what else to say. It felt so weird and so final and so scary, how much _love _was exploding inside me at the moment. Me, the tough guy who didn't care about anyone, was lying here after fucking this girl and was now feeling as tiny as an ant

(NO PUN INTENDED!!!)

because he couldn't tell the love of his life just how much he loved her.

It was a feeling that I could pin-point, but that my pride couldn't bring me to say. _I love you, Winry. You're the reason that I'm alive_. Why couldn't I just tell her?

I didn't know how to say it without sounding weird. So I didn't.

I pressed my lips to her forehead and stared at the wall, troubled. Her hands moved up and down my back soothingly, as if she could read my mind. And, if I had been in a more rational state of mind (such as, not post-orgasm vertigo and incoherence), I would have thought, _That's stupid Ed. She's a girl, yeah, an angel, but she's not _telepathic. But I _was_ in that post-orgy state and that _was_ what I was thinking.

I frowned deeply, my vision doubling and then trebling. The world became wavering prisms and I blinked rapidly, ridding my gaze of the moistness.

Why the flying _fuck_ had I just had the urge to cry?

I hugged Winry tighter against me and sighed, trying to steady myself, trying to calm myself down. She tensed up and looked at me, frowning deeply. "What?" she mumbled. "What's the matter?"

"I love you," I said before I could think about an answer. "I love you. I love you."

Winry stared up at me blankly for a moment. Winry sniffled. Winry buried her face into my chest. Winry burst into tears.

"_I love you, too_," she wailed, her voice muffled by the cloth of my shirt. "I love you _so much_ it's not _funny_. I'm so _glad_ I'm so _happy_ I don't know what to _do_ please don't _ever_ leave me I don't know what I'd _do_ without you _promise_ me Ed please _promise_ me you won't ever leave me _I love you Edward_!"

I grunted, startled, afraid. Guilty. I hugged her even closer to me and frowned, flustered, trying to calm her down by rubbing her back fast. "Hey!" I said, my voice cracking in that pubescent way that pissed me the hell off. "Hey, please stop, why the hell would you say that? I promise you, I won't ever leave you, you seriously think I'd do this to just anybody?"

I don't know how that got through to her. I don't know what that would mean to someone…but I guess, as I thought it over and she looked up at me with a tear-stained face and shining eyes, I _did _realize the significance of my words.

Despite my obstinacy, my impudence, my temper and my fury; despite my "tough guy" attitude and all my impulsive actions and words, I was sweet. I was a sweet, funny guy. Kid. Guy. Whatever.

And she knew that.

She could see _right through me_.

I bit my lip and looked away, brows furrowing angrily.

But I wasn't angry.

There was one person in this world who really actually knew _me_, not Edward Elric the Screamer and Puncher and Not-Carer; she knew _Ed_. More than my brother did. More than _I_ did.

And I was happy about it.

What I had said, _you seriously think I'd do this to just anybody? _had basically told her that I didn't think of anyone this way. Nobody was so high in my heart, in my thoughts; I guess it showed her my compassionate side or something, and told her better than I ever audibly could how much I loved her.

My heart did what I think were somersaults. I swallowed. I nodded.

"I…I'm not leaving you, Winry. I'm not. I promise. You're…" I paused. It got stuck in my throat, my mouth now papery and dry. I forced myself to say it, and for once I didn't regret doing so. "You're the reason I want to wake up every morning. I know that Alphonse and I hold our studies…in a really high priority and of a lot of value, but…if I could just spend the rest of my life with you, I would be just as okay as if Mom were back. And I mean that. You're the purpose of my existence and I know that for sure now. As long…as you don't ever leave me…I think I'll be okay."

There was a long silence where I couldn't see her face. Then it was broken by her hitching a breath, and she started to shake horribly, started to cry all over again, started to sob so agonizingly that it made me feel like my insides were being torn in two.

I felt kind of guilty and said a quick apology in my mind, hoping it got to my mother, hoping she'd understand wherever she was, and then I hugged Winry as tight as I possibly could. I held her. I wished I could somehow hold her better.

Her fingers clawed at my chest and she cried against my chest, "_Please don't do that, please don't give up on what you want because of me_."  
"I want to," I said levelly, the sound and feel of her bawling making me tingle numbly. "I want to," I repeated dully.

"_I'm not that special._"

"That's bullshit."

"_I love you_!"

"I love you, too, Winry, so please stop crying. It's been…I dunno, an hour or so since we came up here and we should probably be getting back downstairs now."

It took five minutes before she was really calmed down. I helped her wipe the tears off her face and she sniffed, looking at me shamefacedly.

"Edward…" she whispered, sliding her palm across my cheek. "I can't even explain to you how important you are to me, too. I hope you know that you are. You're…the only person I've _ever_ loved."

I offered her a gentle quirk of a smile and glanced away again. She turned my head back so that I was looking directly into her eyes. My smile faded.

"I love you," she said slowly. Her eyes were drilling into mine passionately. I felt dizzy again. I pulled myself closer to her, brows furrowing. I suddenly felt incredibly little under her powerful gaze. I wanted to look away but I couldn't even move my optics to avoid hers. I really didn't care. She has such beautiful eyes either way.

"I love you, too," I mumbled. She shushed me before I finished "too".

She smiled and shook her head as she spoke, slowly. "I want you and Al to calm down with your research. It's scaring me. I don't want you guys to get sick. I'm…I'm so _worried_."

"You always worry."

Winry cut me off again, pressing her palm to my mouth before I finished "worry".

"Listen to me for a minute, dumbass," she whispered, her eyes shifting to a soft, loving blaze. "Just please…calm down. Be careful. I don't want to lose you."

Her words struck me somewhere. They ripped through the fog of incoherence that was still winding around me veraciously, and they pinpointed the part of me that remembered important things.

And they stuck.

"I love you," I whispered.

"I love you, too," she whispered back.

We held each other for maybe five more minutes, silently, and then we got up, straightened ourselves up, and walked downstairs holding hands.


	20. Note II

**Author's Note**

**I'd like to make a formal apology to anybody who follows the manga timeline devoutly.**

**I decided to research the time that they went to Izumi's, and I realized that I had royally fucked up.**

**Here is the manga timeline, according to hagaren manga­ on LJ:**

Manga Timeline  
1899- Edward & Winry are born  
1900- Alphonse is born  
1904- Hohenheim leaves  
Ed & Al start doing alchemy (Ed: 5, Al: 4)  
Trisha dies  
1908- Rockbells are killed  
Summer, apprenticeship with Izumi (Ed: 9, Al: 8)  
Winter, Ed & Al return to Resembool  
1910- Failed transmutation (Ed: 11, Al: 10)  
Automail surgery & rehabilitation (takes aprox. 1 year)  
1911- October, State Alchemist exam passed (Ed: 12, Al: 11)  
October 3rd, Ed & Al burn their house and leave Resembool  
1914- Present Day (Ed: 15, Al: 14)

**God. My mistakes piss me off. -teeth gnash.- **

**So…basically, my dates are pretty fucked up, because I'm one of those OCD people who follow this timeline like a religion. ee; **

**Either way, I am not changing my fanfiction.**

**Please just go along with me. I swear I'll make up for the screw-up of dates.**

**Thanks a bunch, and sorry again you guys.**

**- White Silver and Mercury**


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